The Trolley Trail does not belong to you

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post The Harry Wiggins Trolley Trail is by all accounts a wonderful amenity for Brookside and Waldo. Spanning the length from Brush Creek all the way down to 85th Street and turning East to Prospect, it is used by hundreds of walkers, runners, bicyclists, dog walkers and even commuters who walk to school or work. I have had the privilege of serving on the Country Club Right Of Way Advisory Committee (CCROW) since about 1992 Correction: 2002. Got my decades mixed up! The CCROW is a group of citizen volunteers representing various neighborhoods and business entities along the trail. We meet every few months and discuss various projects and issues having to do with the trail. Things like right-of-way leases, landscaping, signage and general care and maintenance all fall under the jurisdiction of the CCROW. This morning our two new councilmembers from the 4th District, Jan Marcason and Beth Gottstein attended so they were given a history of the Trolley Trail by legal counsel Jerry Riffel. I too learned some things, or re-learned some things. I'm starting to reach that age where I can't remember if I already knew it or forgot it! For instance, did you know the Trolley Trail actually served as a freight line in the 70's? I think I knew that but I can't remember! The meeting progressed and we covered issues like the extension of the trail down 85th Street, the Crestwood sewer improvement project and the eventual Brookside Interceptor sewer project which will all affect the trail. It was the general maintenance and suggestion part of the meeting where I really learned something. Apparently the Trolley Trail belongs to a couple of the "original" members and they alone will determine how the trail is used and whom will use it. This was all new information to me. I relayed comments to the group that I have received about the trail. Mainly that people wonder why the trail is made of crushed rock? It's dusty in the summer time, kicking up in the air with every passing individual coating people and property with rock dust. It washes out in sections after a heavy rain, leaving the trail impassable. Its light color and poor heat transfer properties prevent it from melting during the winter leaving the trail unusable for weeks at a time. Finally the loose surface is a hazard to bicyclists, both young and old. I tried to present my comments in a constructive tone. I realize the KCATA doesn't have a ton of money to put down a hard, more permanent surface all at once. I was just bringing a community viewpoint to the group. One self-proclaimed original member of the group proceeded to not only disagree with me, but attempt to dress me down (bad idea) in front of the group (really bad idea). That privilege is reserved for my wife, and the maybe the person that signs my paychecks. This person informed me that the trail is only for walkers and he "doesn't want bicyclists and their high speeds on his trail." "It is not a running trail and it is certainly not for bicyclists" was his main argument. "Kids on bikes are okay but as far as the gravel goes kids are going to wipe out (emphasis mine) and that's just the way it is." Nothing like tough love for the kids of Brookside and Waldo! The other long-time member was attempting to chime in with agreement and simultaneously mention the fact that he's an architect all in one breath which in itself was quite an impressive feat! When I interjected and stated that times change, neighborhoods change and people's usage of the Trolley Trail has changed his final red-faced retort was "Things don't change!" Perhaps in some people's minds the trail should be reserved for men in bowler hats and women with parasols and hoop skirts strolling along while watching children play with a hoop and stick. So I have learned something today. The Trolley Trail belongs to the original members of the CCROW who were there when I was still struggling with Algebra II. Bicyclists and their gosh-darned high speeds are not welcome, and perhaps the most important lesson of all. Things don't change. Glad I got that straight!

When all else fails, baffle them with... bureaucracy?

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post Mayor Funkhouser has seemingly decided that rather than focus on his campaign promises; efficient government, basic city services and fiscal responsibility he will instead try and create useless layers of bureaucracy. The mayor recently claimed he "heard over and over on the campaign trail and since taking office that immigrants want a point of contact at City Hall to help with incorporating new arrivals into the Kansas City community." This ranks right up there with "I was asked to run", "I've received numerous phone calls from community leaders" and my favorite "I'm a consensus builder." Vague proclamations of support lend no credibility to the argument. Even in the face of valid criticism, and with a looming budget deficit the mayor is sending two staffers to Chicago for a big conference on Immigrant Integration. I can't prove the things I heard "over and over" on the campaign trail but there is a record of the questions asked repeatedly at public forums. The candidates were queried about development incentives, the school district and basic city services. A quick check back through my notes does not show one question regarding "Will you establish an office of immigration at City Hall?" In fact I heard nothing about immigration on the campaign trail. Perhaps the mayor needs to go over his notes again. Mayoral aide Crispin Rea implied that "a City Hall person" could help immigrants with any number of issues. Our immigrant population in Kansas City is diverse as it is large. If one person is going to be tasked with handling all that, it's going to take one amazing individual! Where will we find this magical person? That's going to be some help wanted ad! Wanted: Office of Immigration Administrator. The successful candidate must be fluent in at least seven (preferably many more) languages. Will be an expert in cultures as diverse and far-ranging as Chinese to Somalian and everywhere in between. Must be able to move seamlessly across religious boundaries and have a background in dispute resolution amongst mono and poly-theistic, agnostic, and atheistic beliefs as well as the thousands of sub-categories of each. Will have legal expertise in the area of immigration from sovereign nations of every continent. Candidate must be a people person, consensus builder, self-starter and any other worthless buzz expression currently making the corporate circuit. As always, preference will be given to applicants with previous work experience from the city of Denver. I seem to remember estimates around $1 million per year for a landlord licensing office. Could an office of immigration cost any less? Let's take a look at what the mayor could accomplish with the $1 million he wants to spend on his latest boondoggle. Dangerous Buildings - Originally we had a City Hall employee who brokered agreements to get abandoned buildings into the hands of individuals (not developers) who would rehabilitate and live in them. This saved a great deal of our historic housing stock and essentially paid for itself by saving the City the cost of condemning, boarding up and eventually demolishing the structures. The position was eliminated for "budgetary reasons." Greenhouse Facilities - Also another victim of budget cuts, the City used to maintain a full nursery to grow its own street trees as well as plants for parks and public right-of-ways. At the minimum we should be growing our own trees instead of funneling huge bucks to private nurseries. Metal Plates - Instead of the useless legislation passed a few weeks ago, actually implement a real program for metal plates in the street. I have just listed three things off the top of my head over a half cup of coffee. I'm sure there are even better things the City can be doing with a million dollars. Especially a million dollars we don't even have.

Shed some light on the Power & Light District

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post The Kansas City Business Journal reports that Kansas City Power & Light has signed on with Cordish & Co. to be the primary sponsor of the Power & Light District. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but KCP&L will sponsor around 200 events per year starting when the district opens (hopefully) in March. Of particular interest to me was the mention that KCP&L will also pay for a clock tower that will be built as the centerpiece of the district. The tower will have a wind turbine and an electronic display that will light up whenever there's enough wind to generate electricity. Sounds pretty cool... for an entry in a junior high science fair. Parent company Great Plains Energy CEO Mike Chesser thinks the Power & Light District will be "a real opportunity to get our message out to our customers in the region about opportunities for energy efficiency and renewable energy." That's all well and good if you want the message to be "renewable energy is a novelty." Surely Great Plains and KCP&L can be more creative than a wind turbine firing up a light bulb. How about solar power? Using "light" to generate "power?" Power & Light District? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? KCP&L has a fantastic opportunity to show that renewable energy is not just available, it is viable. Surely some architecture firm could design a clock tower with integrated solar panels that is both tasteful and functional. What a magnificent showpiece that would be! Instead of "lighting a display" the solar array could be tied into the power grid with a real-time web display that shows when the array is generating power. Now that would be something worth seeing! Why not do both? Have the wind turbine and solar panels? Denver is already using solar power to run their luggage conveyor system at their airport. San Francisco has a huge installation at Giants Stadium. San Diego powers part of its water treatment facility with solar. C'mon KCP&L! We can't do one little clock tower? Get outside the box a little! Don't let another opportunity pass us all by.

Just Say Anything

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post I was surprised yesterday when an early morning press release from the Mayor's Office arrived announcing a press conference at 11AM regarding light rail. I say surprised because I have not seen the mayor nor any representative from his office involved in any of the Citizens Task Force on Light Rail meetings. I was curious to find out what the mayor was going to say since he's obviously been working in a vacuum with regards to transit. Apparently when you're the mayor you can call a press conference and just say anything you want. Using the restored streetcar at Union Station as a backdrop, the mayor began his comments. There was no earth shattering proclamation. There was no plan. There were no specifics. The mayor stood with six mayors from Platte County municipalities and announced that way back on August 17, these northland leaders had sent him a very nice letter saying they supported a regional transit solution. After the rest of the mayor's remarks which consisted of saying we need to think regionally about a regional transit system involving some sort of rail and maybe some buses and the whole thing should be regional, the six other mayors stepped the microphone one by one and added their individual interpretations of "Yeah, what he said..." In the end the press conference degenerated into the usual exchange between our mayor and the media. The press was asking specific questions about the topic at hand and Mayor Funkhouser was becoming visibly irritated that he was being asked specific questions. What is your plan? He had no plan. His only answer was that we need a plan. Does he think the existing light rail initiative should be repealed? Definitely. By a vote of the council or a ballot intitiative? He didn't care. Would he vote for its repeal? He couldn't say. Did he think the council should vote for its repeal? He couldn't say. What are the specifics for this regional transit vision? There are none. How are you going to pay for this plan, if it really were a plan? He didn't know. It became almost comical watching an already jaded Kansas City media attempt to get the mayor to answer one question with a specific answer. If the mayor is really serious about spearheading a regional transit plan, perhaps he should consider revamping the Kansas City Area Transit Authority. I realize the KCATA is not completely under the control of the mayor of Kansas City. It exists under a complicated bi-state cooperation between the Missouri and Kansas state governments, but it is obvious from the presence of the bright blue "Jo" buses in downtown that Kansas City has no real bi-state cooperation with regards to transit. Why can't Mayor Funkhouser use his bully pulpit to foster regional cooperation right now? How can any of us in the metro area believe in a regional transit plan when our regional transit authority isn't really regional? Why do we have directors on the board of the KCATA from Johnson and Wyandotte Counties in Kansas when those very same counties choose to opt out of funding the ATA in favor or running their own transit organizations? How is it the mayors of the municipalities in Platte County, Missouri can send letters and attend press conferences supporting regional transit when their own municipalities do not currently fund the KCATA? It's common sense that you take care of what you have before you take on new responsibilities. You don't propose regional light rail until you show you can at least manage a regional bus system. And finally, you don't hold a press conference about a plan unless you have a plan.

Kansas City Performing Arts. A Little Help Please.

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post While most of us are familiar with cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland because of the Steelers and the Browns, did you know these cities also have world class symphonies, thriving opera houses and highly acclaimed ballet companies? Opera not your cup of tea? Not a fan of the ballet? Symphony holds no interest? That's personal choice. But just like there are some Kansas Citians who live and die with the Chiefs, there are others who can't tell Nickelback from a quarterback. It takes all kinds of people to make a community and it takes more than professional sports to make a city major league. Our hometown paper, The Kansas City Star has been a downtown cheerleader for many years. The Star has published miles of news print exhorting the public to believe in the renewal of our urban core. I personally think this is a good thing but I also think the Star is missing a key component. Would it really be that much of an imposition to promote our performing arts? The Sprint Center gets entire sections of the paper devoted to it, but when is the last time you saw the Star heralding the opening of a new season at the symphony? Few people would know this, but on certain nights, the Kansas City Symphony plays to a full house at the Lyric Theater. Other nights, including last month's season opener, the Lyric is only about 60% full. This is the same symphony that brings down the house every year at the Celebration at the Station. It is a sad commentary on the attitude of this town's media when the Symphony was actually giving tickets away on Friday afternoon in the hopes of opening the season to a full house but not one TV or radio station thought to make mention of it. Perhaps part of the problem is the perceived stuffiness of the performing arts. I'll admit the financial well-being of the symphony depends on corporations and patrons with names like Helzberg and Kemper, but you are just as likely to see young people in blue jeans as you are octogenarians in black tie. Of course when you read reviews by the Star's resident arts critic Paul Horsely it's easy to see why people would get that stuffy impression. Consider this excerpt from Mr. Horsely's review of the symphony's opening night performance: While some yank and twist Chopin’s phrases willfully in the name of rubato, Ohlsson mined a more Apollonian vein, with crystalline transparency of sound, muscle when needed and passagework that was stoical, at times almost detached. Who talks like that? Nobody I know thank goodness! Perhaps if Mr. Horsely wrote for philistines like me instead of music snobs there might actually be a few more people taking notice of our growing performing arts scene. The arts have depended on the patronage of others for as long as there has been art. Patronage doesn't always take the form of money. Sometimes a kind word (that you don't have to look up in a dictionary), a recommendation, or maybe even a pull-out section in the local newspaper can do wonders for an arts organization. I hope the Star, along with the rest of the Kansas City media will see through the arena, the entertainment district and of course where to park, to find the real story.

SoHo? East Village? I don't think we're in Kansas City anymore...

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post J.J. Maloney once wrote that like every city, Kansas City dreams of greatness. We're known as a cowtown. Our biggest annual event still is the American Royal, during which journalists shake cow patties from their shoes. Kansas Citians are sensitive about that image, feeling it gives us a "hick" reputation. We promote Kansas City as the birthplace of jazz, a claim other cities dispute. We call Kansas City the home of great barbecue; the local media devotes great attention to that subject. Such is the desperation for an identity. It occurs to me that as we move into the 21st Century our search for an identity seems to have come to an end; in New York City. I think it started for me with the SoHo Lofts. At the time the name didn't really bother me too much. It was a private development and therefore none of my business. If the owner wanted to lead everyone to believe that his lofts were south of Houston Street, than so be it. Of course I still haven't found a Houston Street in Kansas City, but with the recent spate of New York imitation I'm confident there will be. I'm thinking 12th Street is a likely candidate. Right in front of Barney Allis Plaza, which of course will have to be renamed Times Square. During the Barnes administration, the mayor went on a naming frenzy. First she coined the term River-Crown-Plaza which at least is relatively unique. Useful? Not so much. Perhaps after a trip to Manhattan, or just a drive down Main past the SoHo Lofts, the mayor came up with the SoLo District. Fortunately that name hasn't really caught on either. People seem to prefer Crossroads much better. It seems appropriate that the controversial J.E. Dunn headquarters was christened The East Village. How original. So I guess that makes the area encompassing the Jackson County Courthouse, City Hall and the Federal Courthouse, Greenwich Village? Why not drop the pretense and just call the Plaza lower Manhattan? Now the latest act of Kansas City un-originality is the Grand Avenue of the Americas. New York City has an Avenue of the Americas, so I guess we have to have one too. $45,000 for some flags and fake signs so we can once again pretend to be something we're not. Forget that Grand Avenue has its own Kansas City history including the fact that its width was determined by Mayor E. Milton McGee who decreed that Grand must be wide enough that he could turn his sulky around without having to stop his horse and back up. But I guess something that identifies with a horse and buggy hits our cowtown sensitivity a little too hard. I wonder how the late mayor would feel about the naming alteration of his grand avenue? Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but I say New York doesn't need the admiration of Kansas City. They're doing fine on their own. We have enough history and pride of our own to be uniquely KC. It's time we turn inward and just be ourselves.

Viable Light Rail For The Viable Third

By Airick Leonard West The Kansas City Post For economic development, transit, safety and funding reasons, Kansas City should place lightrail along the Chouteau/Prospect Corridor. This is the corridor starting north of the river at Antioch Mall near Chouteau & I-35 and proceeding south along Prospect and eventually to Bannister. Economic Development In a time when economic development patterns in KCMO continue to sprawl in all directions, lightrail is a reasonable approach to organizing residential development and population density. In three similarly sized markets that have recently started or extended track-based transit systems (Portland, OR; Denver, CO; St Louis, MO), local officials have credited recent lightrail extensions for continuing to catalyze a resurgence in urban development and density. If we are strategic in our implementation, we can expect to see similar benefits here. The Chouteau/Prospect Corridor epitomizes corridors that are under-utilized and under-invested. The entire length of the corridor provides ample space for new development as well as a strong mix of neighborhood anchors on which to build. Required transit Kansas City is a long city north and south with many of its employment centers located near downtown. Evidence of Kansas City's elongated development pattern is that Troost and Prospect are the most traveled bus lines. It is somewhat likely that lightrail will eventually be located on the Main/Grand corridor. If that happens, it makes sense to have two north/south routes that take advantage of existing development as well as stimulate new development. For this reason, a Chouteau/Prospect Corridor alignment is more logical than a Troost alignment -- it would be unwise to have the two routes too close to each other. In addition to serving a strong workforce ridership, the Chouteau/Prospect Corridor has many significant anchor institutions either already in place or under development. These shopping centers, community centers, educational institutions and medical facilities are critical destinations for Kansas City families. Safety A recent commission on violent crime concluded that rising unemployment is a major factor in rising violent crime rates. Much of the violent crime in Kansas City occurs along its most under-developed, relatively jobless corridors. Bringing lightrail to the Chouteau/Prospect Corridor would spur population density which would eventually result in substantial increases in retail density/jobs and likely a corresponding reduction in violent crime. This direct link between track-based mass transit and increases in retail development/employment opportunities has been observed in each of the three comparison markets. Funding Strategy Denver self-funded its starter line and after leaving downtown, rather than running it to nearby commercial nodes, ran it to a nearby neighborhood node -- five-points. Their strategy worked and has spurred several extensions to the system and catalyzed economic growth along those extensions. Part of the wisdom of this strategy was that federal funding guidelines favor projects that are extensions of an existing system rather than startups. In other words, we should self-fund a starter line because an existing track-record makes it easier to attract federal funding. We could enjoy similar success if we self-fund the starter line within the next three years and put ourselves in a position to go after federal dollars to extend our system. Another major consideration is determining which routes federal transit dollars are more likely to support. Clearly, once federal transit money is part of the equation, we will always want to build extensions that are in federal grant-eligible areas. One of the ramifications of this is that very low density areas often will not qualify under federal guidelines. For this reason, it would be most advisable to self-fund a starter line along a highly desirably alignment that would potentially *not* qualify for federal funding since that alignment would otherwise never get built. Because of the low density of population and development along a few sections of the Chouteau/Prospect Corridor, federal funding is questionable. but because of the many other attractive characteristics of the Corridor, it would behoove Kansas City to build lightrail along this alignment. These correlated realities collectively suggest that our initial, self-funded route should occur along the Chouteau/Prospect Corridor. There are only two absolute requirements to pass a reasonable lightrail plan in Kansas City: 1) It must cross the river to address the increasing work commuter congestion of getting into downtown; and 2) It must serve Kansas City's existing transit users -- the bulk of which are currently coming from east of Prospect between Independence Ave and Brush Creek Blvd. Route Map & Further Information A map of the proposed alignment along the Chouteau/Prospect Corridor is available at www.airick.com/lightrail/map Recent data about bus ridership in KCMO is available at www.airick.com/lightrail/busdata Additional thoughts about the purpose of track-based transit is at www.airick.com/lightrail/purpose ViableThird.com will be hosting a public meeting concerning lightrail along the Chouteau/Prospect Corridor on Thursday, November 1 from 6pm-8pm at Pioneer College (18th & Prospect). All are invited.