Trolley By Golly!

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post Way back in the 1980's the city of Galveston, Texas decided to build a trolley system to link their downtown arts district with the sea wall. The idea was that a trolley would be an additional tourist attraction and would aid in circulating visitors unfamiliar with the area. Because of the historic nature of many of the buildings and streetscapes they decided to employ a self-propelled system so as not to mar the area with overhead wires and their supporting infrastructure. The second reason was the gulf coast location. Hurricanes tend to blow down overhead wires. Ask the city of New Orleans. Their St. Charles line trolley is still not running because they haven't had the time and money to repair the overhead wires. Galveston surmised that after a major hurricane, all they would have to do is remove debris from the tracks and their transit system would be back up and running. The system cost $20 Million dollars to build. This included four custom built trolleys, the track, a maintenance facility and the necessary operational funds to begin service. $10 Million dollars came from UMTA Federal grant funds, with the remaining required local match of $10 Million coming from the State of Texas and two private foundations. Against much opposition, the trolleys began operating in 1988. Then something unexpected happened. The trolleys became much more than the "touristy frou-frou" they were designed to be. Turns out the locals started using them for lunchtime jaunts, shopping, errands and in some cases commuting. Pretty good for 2.1 mile loop. Now Galveston had a problem. Albeit a good one. They were faced with turning a tourist attraction into a legitimate transit system. In 1995 the route was expanded and the entire system turned over to the local bus system to operate. In 2005 the system was expanded once again. This time a 1.5 mile branch to the University of Texas Medical Campus. Touristy frou-frou had gone legit. Could the same success happen for Kansas City? Maybe, maybe not. We don't have a built-in attraction like an ocean. We do have venues around downtown that draw people back and forth though. The KCRTA in conjunction with the Downtown Council is looking at a trolley system for downtown. Completely separate from the light rail debacle, er I mean plan, our trolleys would be much like the Galveston system. Touristy frou-frou. If I was made "Trolley King" for a day, I think I would run a line right down 12th Street, across the bridge and into the West Bottoms. Why? The American Royal for one. Second? Up and over the second bridge and back around W 9th St. for the clubs, art and architecture galleries and haunted houses. Now I realize we don't have $20 million lying around to blow on trolleys, but if cities like Galveston can be creative with technology and financing, why can't we?