Seriously... When Will We Get a Light Rail? (Liberal, Denver: middle-class, home)

[MOKAN]

Originally Posted by aragx6

Well Light Rail alone would leave out some cities with comprehensive systems like Chicago which doesn't have light rail per se. And I'm not sure exactly what qualifies a city as being an "industrial wasteland" so I'll ignore all that and list older manufacturing cities that have some form of non-bus public transit

Chicago, Philly, St. Louis, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Newark, Jersey City and Cleveland. And Memphis, New Orleans and Little Rock have trolleys.

Okay, Chicago, Philly, Baltimore, cities in greater NYC are in a different league than KC and have different needs. Even New Orleans has a tourism aspect not found in your more average city increasing demand.

So we have Cleveland, Memphis and Little Rock. They have streetcars? But do they have lightrail?

I know St. Louis has lightrail, but it is a more unique, much larger, much more urban city than Kansas City.

Which cities similar to KC have lightrail? Cincy, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, perhaps Columbus?

An example of who doesn't count is Denver. Denver is not an industrial wasteland and it is much more progressive, younger, more educated, more transplants, far less ghetto issues, etc. It's in a different league.

[MOKAN]

Originally Posted by kcmo

God, those Little Rock Trolleys are worthless. I hate it when people mention that Little Rock has light rail or trolleys. It has a couple of EXTREMELY slow vintage streetcars that go back and forth across the river. I'm not saying anything about you aragx6, I just see the press say it sometimes. (Little Rock has light rail and KC doesn't). Well, not really.

I would compare KC to more of a Denver rather than a Cleveland when it comes to light rail and LRT works well in Cleveland. The system in Cleveland is pretty old and Downtown (and the rest of the central urban corridor (river to plaza) is more developed than Cleveland to support transit.

Also, cities much smaller than KC have full blown LRT. Buffalo, Norfolk, Tacoma, Charlotte etc. And many cities similar in size do like Sacramento, San Diego.

KC is by no means any less fit for light rail than most of those other cities. KC's biggest problem is the the political lay of the land.

The density of the city is not contained within KCMO city limits. The spine is, but outside of Downtown, the line have to quickly exit KCMO and enter other areas. So most of the city would have to fund LRT that would only work in a small part of the city. The only corridors where LRT would work are from Downtown to Blue Springs along 70 and from Downtown to Olathe along 35 and possibly something straight south into SKC.

But built up density of the area mostly flows from the old northeast (and somewhat along the 70 east corridor) all the way to olathe in a southwestern angle and that would require MO and KS to actually get along and do something productive which we all know doesn't seem possible.

Buffalo has lightrail???

This was a pretty well thought out post. I like it. I agree with the political climate in KC being the problem, mostly KCMO though, which is part of the reason JoCo and the "core" of our urbanized area flows into Kansas, besides the geography of the blue river you often cite.

[xenokc]

In other news...

Looks like the KC ATA is proposing to merge the 57 line with the MAX Orange line. Will mean no more local service down Main (through Midtown, which is OK) and will increase service weekdays. I wish they would bump Sunday service to 15min instead of 30. MAX is getting crowded on Sundays.

http://www.kcata.org/documents/uploads/MMProposal.pdf

Proposed Average MAX Orange Headways Plaza to RM...
Weekday
AM Peak 10 minutes
Midday 10 (from 15)
PM Peak 10
Evening 15 (from 30)

Saturday 15
Sunday 30

[xenokc]

The ATA is proposing changes on a lot of lines...
KCATA | Maps and Schedules

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by xenokc

In other news...

Looks like the KC ATA is proposing to merge the 57 line with the MAX Orange line. Will mean no more local service down Main (through Midtown, which is OK) and will increase service weekdays. I wish they would bump Sunday service to 15min instead of 30. MAX is getting crowded on Sundays.

http://www.kcata.org/documents/uploads/MMProposal.pdf

Proposed Average MAX Orange Headways Plaza to RM...
Weekday
AM Peak 10 minutes
Midday 10 (from 15)
PM Peak 10
Evening 15 (from 30)

Saturday 15
Sunday 30

Those frequencies are not good enough if max is the only service offered. Plus, I think a corridor like Main should have a line with local stops to compliment the more express service of Max. You are asking a lot for old ladies and families to walk several blocks to their homes etc and they will slow down the max buses.

I used to use which ever came first, max or 57, and it would depend on where I was going too often it was easier to way for a 57. Seems like a step backword.

[xenokc]

There are so many MAX stops through midtown that it may not matter that the local stops go away. All MAX stops are easily walkable between each other in midtown, granted a local line would be nice too. Through downtown, there are other bus lines that will service local stops on Main. It sounds like local service will continue S of Plaza to Waldo, which will slightly improve midday weekdays.

10 minute headway is not bad on weekdays (that is as good or better than light rail schedule in most cities) but they really should bump up Sundays to 15min.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by xenokc

There are so many MAX stops through midtown that it may not matter that the local stops go away. All MAX stops are easily walkable between each other in midtown, granted a local line would be nice too. Through downtown, there are other bus lines that will service local stops on Main. It sounds like local service will continue S of Plaza to Waldo, which will slightly improve midday weekdays.

10 minute headway is not bad on weekdays (that is as good or better than light rail schedule in most cities) but they really should bump up Sundays to 15min.

15 min in the middle of a weekday for the only bus that will come? Not good. I know that everybody I worked with at Crown Center would just assume drive. You should not have the fear of missing a bus and having to wait 15 minutes. You should always think that there will be a bus within 5-10 minutes. Always. That's how you get people to use the buses.

Basically catching a bus to a downtown meeting or lunch event will become impossible. It's already a convoluted mess only used by the most die hard transit supporters.

But at least those people could jump on 57 and be downtown quickly.

KC desperately needs something that goes in an actual straight line and runs every 5-7 minutes during peak and 10-12 off peak. It could be a bus, a trolley, a horse drawn carriage. But that's what KC needs if they ever want to get more random and average people to use transit.

I guess the street cars might just bring that. I don't know.

[xenokc]

Check closer.. midday is going from 15min to 10min. This is as good as any light rail line.. what's to complain about? There are many other local lines that merge into downtown that you can catch if in downtown vicinity.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by xenokc

Check closer.. midday is going from 15min to 10min.

oops, my bad. now where did I miss the straightening out part?

[xenokc]

Just checked Denver and STL light rail schedules. Denver's headways don't look very good throughout the day if I read it right. STL has about 10-20min headways daytime and 20min evenings. MAX will be better weekdays (10min all day long) and a bit better nights with 15min headway but they need to get Sundays to 15min too.