After Oil - The rest of the story

By Kevin Klinkenberg The Kansas City Post For several years now I’ve been making a living somehow by extolling the virtues of walkable urbanism. I give countless presentations on how much of a pleasure it is to live in a neighborhood where one can walk to many of life’s daily needs, and your entire lifestyle is not chained to an automobile. For me, that neighborhood is now Volker, where I’m just a couple blocks off of 39th Street. The simple joys of walking to the ice cream store, to a bar, to buy a card or coffee are hard to express unless you’ve not been able to do that for most of your life. You can call this approach whatever you like – New Urbanism, Smart Growth, Quality Places, Traditional Neighborhood Design. But the basic premise is simple – a great many of us simply prefer to live our lives in neighborhoods where walking is a normal, daily activity – not something done simply for exercise. What is apparent these days is that we haven’t been nearly aggressive enough in making more places walkable. This is especially so in the Midwest and Kansas City, where living without a car is frankly unimaginable to most. I wrote previously about how the changing dynamics in energy are beginning to impact us, and will continue to do so. Don’t believe me? Fine, listen to T Boone Pickens, any executive of an oil company or any geologist who studies what is going on. So I left us last time with – what do we do? Do we just throw in the towel and hide in our homes and on our computers? Hardly – that’s not the standard of living which we expect. But we will have to re-order our lives in some fairly simple ways. Fortunately, many of the ways are things that we actually enjoy as human beings, and provide a side benefit of being healthy for us. For example, getting back to walking. Remember walking? Count on doing more of it. Bicycling, too. And that dreaded “t” word will rear its head – transit. Yes, transit. We will all increasingly be taking public transportation on a regular basis if we are to lead productive, fulfilling lives. It really is going to be that simple. Our lives as the 21st century progresses will in many ways resemble the lives our forefathers did in the 19th century. We will have to re-order our daily existence to live in walkable, transit-friendly neighborhoods. This will of course not be an easy thing to do – we’ve spent all of the last 60 years building an infrastructure that supports sprawling, car-oriented development patterns. Many folks simply cannot survive today without the use of a personal vehicle for every trip outside of the house. This will have to change, and change fairly quickly. The greatest opportunity to accommodate the new 21st century lifestyle is paradoxically the places we abandoned in the 20th century. Our pre-WWII neighborhoods, especially in Kansas City, Missouri, were designed and built on a system of streetcars and walkability. They are tailor-made for the way will we need to live in the future. But will our city leadership strive to take advantage of this opportunity? Some consider rail transit, for example, an expense that is hard to justify, even though a continuous, diverse urban fabric is simply not possible without it. Others worry about accommodating far-flung commuters in perhaps the least-dense metro area into the country. Instead, why don’t we work on making the old city itself a haven of walkability, quality density and transit-friendliness? What if we worked hard to make the City great, and welcomed the formerly car-dependent into its arms? Why would we assume that 50 years from now people will still be living in low-density towns such as Grain Valley wanting to commute into downtown Kansas City? In the course of history there are often “game-changing” events that reshape how we live. The advent of elevators made it possible for cities to grow in denser concentrations than previously imagined. Air conditioning has made living in southern climates tolerable year-round, even opening up the possibility of inhabiting the desert. Modern sewage treatment made urban living clean and safe. And the rise of the personal automobile created a dispersed city form unlike anything seen previously in human history. But that era of cheap and easy motoring is over. Let’s all mourn its death – it had its fun moments, but it also has left us decades worth of problems to correct. The future can be better, if we seize it.

2008. Year one of AO – After Oil

By Kevin Klinkenberg The Kansas City Post I’m sitting outside on a beautiful night in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and here I am thinking about oil. The phrase – “get a life” comes to mind. But, it’s on my mind as I watch cars roar by on an overly-wide one way street in this sleepy downtown, sitting in an outdoor café that used to be a fast-food joint. My chair is nestled against a rail that separates me from the surface parking lot in front of the building. It’s an apt scene for thinking about the future of energy and our way of life. I think history will mark history will mark 2008 as year one of AO – After Oil. We are entering a new era that will impact our lives and our cities in ways just as profound as the automobile era did starting in the 20th century. As your grief counselor, let me just advise you that it’d be best for us all to quickly proceed through the 5 stages of grief, so that we can get on to more productive lives. Which stage are you in? Denial – “This isn’t really happening, it’s only a temporary blip” Anger – “It’s the greedy oil companies, Arabs, politicians (insert favorite enemy here)” Bargaining – “If we just all buy hybrid cars we’ll be fine!” Depression – “The economy is collapsing, our society is doomed!” Instead, we all should move on to Acceptance – the era of cheap oil is over, and with it the easy motoring lifestyle that we’ve all grown accustomed to (including me). Our lifestyles are going to be permanently altered by world events, so let’s go ahead and start changing so we can enjoy ourselves more quickly. Welcome to the Post-Petroleum Era. You may have heard the phrase “peak oil” before, or even read a book or two about it. Briefly, allow me to clarify what is going on, so we can move past the Denial stage. The world is not running out of oil tomorrow, or next year or 10 years from now. But what we are running out of is the cheap, easily accessible oil. On top of that, our ability to produce more globally is constrained – all projections by everyone in and outside the industry shows a flattening of worldwide production in the next few years. And if that weren’t enough, worldwide demand is increasing exponentially, thanks to burgeoning economies in places like China, India, Brazil, Russia and the Middle East. One quick example – India currently contains about 300 million people that are considered “middle class”, up from less than 100 million 15 years ago. That number is projected to double to 600 million by 2020 – a little over 10 years from now. Now, middle class in India is not the same as middle class in the US, but it does mean another population equal to the entire US who will be upgrading their lifestyles and vehicles. It might mean just a motorized scooter or bike, or a small car. But it’s a substantial increase in demand regardless. And the same thing is happening in China and the other places I noted above. Those who think the recent spike in oil prices are because of a falling US dollar, or in any way tied to the American economy are simply in that first phase of grief – Denial. So it’s in this context that we must understand the sharp rise in gasoline prices, and what the future holds for us. No amount of biofuels, electric cars or fuel-efficient gasoline engines will change the fundamental dilemma facing us and the world – it simply is going to get more and more expensive to drive our cars, to the point where many, if not most, middle class households will have to sharply curtail driving. In fact, many of us may simply not be able to afford personal motorized transportation at all. So what do we do? That’s the subject for the next column – stay tuned…

Let Citizen Committees Do Their Job

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post The citizen committee culture in Kansas City is something of which I've long been critical. On the surface it sounds like a solid idea. Appoint qualified, civic-minded individuals to study a problem and recommend a solution. Use the talent and experience being offered free of charge of those who wish simply to contribute to the common good. Unfortunately, that is not how citizen committees actually work, or not work if you will. I have had the honor of serving on three mayoral appointed committees. With the exception of the Competitive Review Committee (my first) it has been my experience that the dirty little secret about citizen committees is they really don't reach any of their own conclusions. Mostly committees are a group of individuals, some wishing to contribute, some wishing to pad a civic resume and even one or two just looking for a captive audience to which they can complain about some cause or perceived injustice. Committees watch presentations from paid consultants who are given the real task of developing a solution. The presentations and information provided by the consultants is usually weighted to lead the committee to the conclusions the consultant team inevitably wants implemented. Not that there's anything nefarious going on with the consultants. We all have bias when it comes to our work, so why wouldn't a paid professional present his or her conclusions in a positive light and less desirable solutions in a more negative fashion? In a time when we're all being asked to tighten our financial belts it occurs to me there is a layer of inefficiency in our citizens' advisory committee system. We have two choices from the way I see it. Remove the citizens advisory committees altogether and have the consultants present directly to the City Council, or remove the consultants and appoint citizen advisory committees with relevant qualifications to do the actual work. It would seem the latter would be the most cost effective choice for the taxpayers. Kansas City is blessed with an abundance of professionals from every walk of life who are more than willing, and more than qualified to serve on committees and offer sensible recommendations for a variety of civic issues. I have served with architects, engineers, financiers, attorneys and just about any other type of profession who were more than qualified to offer professional opinions of a variety of subjects. The best part? They're willing to do this for free. The only consultants needed in this process would be a professional selection committee since the Mayor and Council do not seem to have the ability to keep from also appointing their friends, enemies, daughter's dance teacher, wife's friends, large contributors or complete lunatics. Put together a competent group of citizens with backgrounds germane to the issue and watch what civic-minded people can do. To those who would argue that you get what you pay for? How many light rail plans have we paid for in the last 30 years? With all that money wasted on consultants we could have already laid a few miles of track, or a few hundred yards of modern sewer. Maybe even paved a street or two.

Green sewers, or just a green bandwagon?

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post It seems every politician is jumping on the green bandwagon these days. And why not? Who wants to be on record as being against helping the environment? But in their fervor to be on the side of righteousness, some politicos fail to educate themselves on what green solutions really are. Last month eight members of the City Council drafted and signed a letter to the City Manager calling for $500 million worth of green solutions to be included in the upcoming EPA mandated combined sewer remediation plan. The eight self-anointed environmental stewards complain that their consciences cannot withstand a sewer plan that only contains $30 million in green solutions. With an EPA deadline looming in July, it seems foolish to come in at the last minute with grandiose suggestions of environmentally friendly sewage treatment techniques. The time for that was months before the final project plans began taking shape. Massive civil engineering projects cannot be changed at the last minute like the wall color in your new kitchen. Where were councilmembers Ed Ford, Cindy Circo, Terry Riley, Beth Gottstein, Melba Curls, John Sharp, Cathy Jolly and Sharon Sanders Brooks months ago during the planning process? Certainly not studying sewage treatment techniques. Now in the eleventh hour they draft a letter asking for a half billion dollars for solutions of which they have no concept, only that they're green and that sounds really neat! At this stage the only goal should be satisfying the EPA so we don't end up in federal court. We have enough legal issues at City Hall right now. As far as "green solutions" I'm all for them. But isn't preventing raw sewage from flowing into open waters by definition "green?" It would seem we can always go back and install another rain garden or two after we stop dumping raw sewage. I'm certainly not against passive treatment techniques, but I'm more against flushing our toilets directly into Brush Creek. I also understand that even the current plan doesn't completely eliminate sewage overflow. If any extra money needs to be spent, it needs to be spent on a more sanitary plan, not a more trendy one. There are plenty of environmental issues for the newly minted environmentalists on the city council to pursue. Certainly most of them don't have a July deadline. What about clean air? We need look no further than our own back yards to find a major environmental hazard. According to the EPA, using a gas-powered lawnmowers for an hour generates as many volatile organic compounds—dangerous airborne pollutants as driving a typical car for 350 miles. With 54 million Americans mowing their lawns on a weekly basis, gas lawnmower emissions account for as much as five percent of the nation’s total air pollution. Beyond that, homeowners spill some 17 million gallons of gasoline every year just refueling their lawnmowers. Factor in gas-powered string trimmers and leaf blowers and those disturbing numbers continue to climb. Why not promote green initiatives for lawn care in Kansas City? And I don't mean drafting a letter to the City Manager asking him to "fix the air." Come up with the plan yourselves. You weren't elected to write position papers. I met most of you on the campaign trail and I don't recall "I'll write a memo" being an answer any of you gave at the campaign forums.

Regional Transit Needs A Regional Leader

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post A few weeks ago I attended a Mayor's Town Hall meeting in the Hyde Park neighborhood. The Mayor made some opening remarks during which he talked about his campaign rhetoric that "the first TIF plan that comes across my desk better be for the East side." He then went on to admit that he now realizes it was foolish to make such proclamations without being fully educated on the minutia of economic development in Kansas City. He explained that he did not realize that current economic development tools do not lend themselves to small-scale development. Was Mark Funkhouser actually admitting he was wrong? Perhaps there was hope after all. Of course within a few minutes he turned to the topic of light rail and made the definitive statement "any light rail plan has to go down Troost." So much for learning from your mistakes. Despite my skepticism about the Mayor's specific plan, a regional transit plan may actually be a possibility. With gasoline prices continuing their upward climb, people are starting to feel the pinch of commuting across our sprawling metro. Commuter bus routes are becoming overwhelmed with new riders and suburban municipalities are left scrambling to find funding to add capacity. Perhaps the concept of a true regional transit authority and funding mechanism finally makes sense to even the most obstinate of metro suburbanites. All things considered (my apologies to NPR) Mark Funkhouser is not the right leader for this initiative. Sometimes in order to lead you have to know when to step aside and I believe with all his troubles; a pending civil lawsuit alleging discrimination and retaliation, a pending lawsuit against the City Council regarding the City Manager contract, an openly hostile relationship with certain City Councilpersons and a growing number of Kansas City voters with buyer's remorse the mayor of Kansas City is not the leader we need for a regional cooperative. Steel plates still appear throughout the city improperly installed in direct defiance of the Mayor's own ordinance. It's impossible to put faith in someone to construct a multi-billion dollar transit system when he can't even oversee a simple street maintenance policy. A regional transit plan needs a regional leader. I believe the Jackson County Executive to be a far more logical choice to promote solutions to our transit woes. Two of the most transit hungry suburban municipalities (Blue Springs and Lee's Summit) lie within Jackson County. Mike Sanders may not want to step in and garner the appearance that he's trying to steal the Mayor's thunder, but I think now is the time to put the welfare of our citizenry above the possible hurt feelings of one (or two) individual(s) who most likely will be a private citizen by May of 2011. What say ye Mike Sanders? Your county needs you.

Downtown parking is not the problem

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post It's difficult to revive an urban center with people who are suburban minded. Kansas City wants to compete with Dallas, Minneapolis, and even Chicago, but we're trying to do so with leaders who seemed convinced that acres of blacktop parking lots are the answer. I'm consistently amazed annoyed by what seems to be the new slogan for downtown. "But where will I park?" Maybe if some of these self-appointed leaders would venture outside of Missouri once in a while they might get a sense of how vibrant urban centers actually work. Recently The Star's Kevin Collison penned a piece called "Seeing Red Over Meters" in which he quotes Jonathan Kemper, president and CEO of Commerce Bank, Downtown Council member, and board member of the Citizens Association. "It will drive people out of downtown" he grouses when referring the the idea that the City Council may raise parking meter rates to (gasp!) $1 and hour. Mr. Kemper then goes on to disparage hard-working police parking enforcement officials by calling them "nasty." Nice. The article goes on to mention a scientific poll conducted by the Star in which 90 percent of respondents thought downtown needed free parking. What a shocker. You need a scientific poll to tell you people like things that are free?! I think I just found my calling. I'm going to become a pollster. Maybe the airlines will pay me to conduct a scientific poll that people would prefer airfares to be free. I'm also pleased to announce that a group of six-year olds at my neighborhood playground explained to me that their lives would be significantly better if they each had a pony. The world runs on supply and demand. A simple price-elasticity graph will show you where to set the parking rates. Limited parking creates activity. People park farther away and walk, maybe patronizing a business on the way. People use cabs, ride the bus, carpool... That's called economic activity. Limited parking creates the need for good public transit. Higher parking meter rates create higher turnover. It keeps people moving. It opens up spaces at a higher frequency. In the business world that's called turnover or "churn" and that's a good thing. Least of all, but also important, yes parking meters provide revenue for City coffers. We might even need more of those "nasty meter maids" as Mr. Kemper so graciously refers to them. All that activity sounds pretty good to me. No urban renaissance has ever been created or sustained by free parking. It's unfortunate that such a powerful organization like the Downtown Council can be so short-sighted. Yes downtown is enjoying a resurgence. Yes we need to keep that momentum going. But the whole reason for pursuing activity on the streets is to generate commerce (no pun intended). And even the simple act of harvesting a few quarters out of a parking meter is far better than what we had just a few short years ago. A buck an hour is not going to keep people away if your product is good enough. Perhaps the downtown leaders should concentrate on that side of the equation. Make downtown a place where people will gladly pay $1 just to be there. After all, what good is a product if you have to give it away for free?

Make sure you read that contract...

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post On April 11th the City Attorney received a letter from Cordish's attorneys regarding the status of what they feel should be an exclusive festival liquor license for the Power & Light District. Tony Botello at TonysKansasCity.com was the first to hit the blogosphere with the news. It seems that Cordish is upset with current legislation in the works down at Jefferson City that would allow the creation of "festival districts" throughout the city of Kansas City. I'm not an attorney, but I do know how to read. The letter repeatedly references Section 9.1(k) of the MDA (Master Development Agreement). I managed to obtain a copy of the MDA. All 184 pages of it. 9.1(k) basically says "you have to fulfill 9.1(a-j) or we won't close the deal." Fair enough. Any contract expects both sides to perform. I think what Cordish is most worked up about is Section 9.1(g). Here it is in its entirety. (g) Liquor Licenses. Developer requests that the City shall use its best efforts to enable Developer or its designee and any tenant of the Urban Mixed-Use Project designated by Developer to obtain and utilize for a term of ninety-nine (99) years commencing on the Substantial Completion of the Urban Mixed-Use Project an arena type liquor license similar to the arena license utilized at Power Plant Live, Baltimore, Maryland or an Entertainment Destination Center License similar to the license issued for Fourth Street Live, Louisville, Kentucky. Such license is intended to permit designated Tenants to sell and serve open containers of alcoholic beverages in the common areas of the Urban Mixed-Use Project and on the streets and sidewalks surrounding the Urban Mixed-Use Project and shall permit their customers to consume such alcoholic beverages in such areas. The parties acknowledge that a change in Missouri law may be required. The letter stipulates that while the advantage of exclusivity is not explicitly mentioned in the contract, there were verbal assurances and subsequent actions by the City which led Cordish to believe that they would continue to have the only festival license in Kansas City. Then something changed and in the past year not only is the City failing to protect that exclusivity, they are actively lobbying to eliminate it by passing new legislation that would allow festival licenses throughout Kansas City. The irony is not lost on me that when the City Manager began pressuring Cordish last year to live up to their verbal promises of having the complete district open by the fall of 2007, the developer was quick to fall back on the "read the contract" defense saying that while they may, or may not have implied they would make an attempt at opening, the actual contract gives them until the end of 2008. Basically they told the City to go pound sand. Now with the tables turned, Cordish finds itself in the weak position of exclaiming "but you told us..." and the City attorney can simply say "read the contract." Digging a little deeper, I have to wonder. Why expand the festival licenses? Why now? What has changed? According to Cordish's attorneys, "The passage of the legislation creating festival districts is bad public policy that our client believes is motivated solely by individual political contributions to individual Council persons." Political contributions affecting our city government? Say it ain't so! But please do say who gave what to whom. Inquiring minds want to know! Vague implications of graft don't carry much weight. I'm not convinced that the loss of an exclusive festival liquor license will result in decreased revenues for the Power & Light District. But in the final analysis I have to say I think it is counterproductive that our City government is pursuing legislation that could possibly (and I'm only conceding could) have a detrimental effect on a project in which we are all so deeply invested. That MDA may have been signed by a previous administration, but we the taxpayers are left to pay for it. As my dad used to say "you dance with the gal ya brung" and in this case, like it or not, we brought Cordish to this dance. It's up to us to make the best of it.