TKC BREAKING AND EXCLUSIVE NEWS!!! KANSAS CITY 3RD DISTRICT EAST SIDE 18TH AND VINE CORRIDOR LEADS RACE FOR NEW TOY TRAIN STREETCAR LINE 2014 VOTE!!!
Like it or not, the despicable election tactics and outrageous cost per mile of the Kansas City Toy Train Streetcar could soon find new support in the urban core.
To wit . . .
KANSAS CITY INSIDERS TELL US THAT THE TOY TRAIN STREETCAR COULD EASILY WIN 2014 VOTER SUPPORT IN AN UPCOMING ELECTION FOR ANOTHER LINE IN THE 18TH & VINE CORRIDOR!!!
A 2014 election has already been proposed but here's why the East side addition makes sense . . .
- An East side line is estimated as the cheapest addition ($105M) to the toy train route and the quick left turn is the most feasible way to extend the new streetcar tracks.
- While Downtown biz opposes the line, East side leaders are enthusiastic about jobs and economic opportunity promised by toy train supporters.
- Top East Side consultants and politicos like the up & coming crew from Parson and Associates have been instrumental in toy train streetcar support as overall toy train opposition grows . . . A bit of payback might be in order.
The 1.74 31st/Linwood east to Prospect connecting with the toy train is really the entry point for talking about an 18th St. route that "makes sense" to other East side community leaders.
Not so long ago TKC talked with Council Dude Jermaine Reed about the prospect of an East Side toy train addition and a risky move in supporting the route.
"There wasn't much risk in supporting the streetcar from my position because the 3rd District needs more economic development and jobs that this effort will provide," Reed said. "Supporting the streetcar was the right thing to do because it has the potential to become an economic catalyst for many neighborhoods and communities."
Moreover . . . Here's why the other leading contenders for a toy train addition will FAIL . . .
Main St. to South UMKC is too expensive and pushing more biz away from the Plaza with messy construction will invariably encourage the wrath of "Save the Plaza" advocates, condo dwellers and other bored middle-class white people. The Independence Avenue east to Benton Boulevard line has already encountered early opposition. Northeast News has taken a stand against the project and there's actually a neighborhood debate thanks to activists like El Bryan who has beaten the Toy Train before it starts.
Meanwhile . . . 18th and Vine seems amenable to Toy Train promises and there's simply less biz to interfere with when adding the new line to this part of town.
18th and Vine is the next logical step for the Kansas City Downtown Toy Train extension and the politics of anti-streetcar advocates fall apart when talking subsidy aimed at the urban core with an open welcome from the East Side political establishment.
And so . . .
IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO CONNECT THE EAST SIDE 18TH AND VINE DISTRICT WITH THE DOWNTOWN TOY TRAIN?!?!
This is the only place where the "votes are there" and the effort now leads the debate behind the scenes.
Developing . . .
I think they're entitled to benefit from the street car.
ReplyDeleteParson & Associates has its offices in the Historic Lincoln Building at 18th and Vine in Kansas City....
ReplyDeleteThat's about the only clue one needs to see what this is all about.
I'll support the Indy Ave line just to watch bryan stalder live tweet his aneurysm when the vote passes... which it will.
ReplyDeleteTransporting the criminal to the scene of the crime.
ReplyDeletetrue !
DeleteUh Oh will her salary be taken from the toy train funds?
ReplyDeleteNEWS
Mayor Sly James appoints education advisor
Holland starts Dec. 1, with a yearly contract costing $75,000 in salary and benefits. The position is funded through a partnership between the mayor’s office and the Kauffman Foundation.
Partnership between the Mayors Office and Kauffman?
ReplyDeleteWhats that smell?
12:54; transplants refer the The Avenue as "Indy Ave"; i assure you, there's no such thing. Anyway, welcome to the neighborhood. And also, I have no doubt that the city would have a problem gerrymandering a district to get the desired results to build an Independence Avenue streetcar. It's disturbing to me that anyone who cares about their neighborhood or city would want City Hall to have this kind of power.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the 18th Street extension; that is hilarious, because it scored like 48 out of 100 in a recent $4M study performed by BNIM, but it also makes sense because it's in Jermaine Reed's district. He sits on the transportation committee, and connecting the floundering Jazz District to the rest of our tourist route will score him points with the people in his district who influence everyone else.
There is too much opposition along every other route. What a great blog entry. It won't be reported in the paper, but it's all true.
But before all the ribbon-cutting and balloons are launched, the people who actually OWN property in that part of the east side might want to remember that only people who LIVE in the new TDD will get to vote, not them.
ReplyDeleteAnd with as little assessed value as is in that area, just how much are taxes going to have to increase to fund $100 million?
Taxing businesses out of the area is not exactly the best way to create jobs.
Maybe they can hire a beagle to sniff out new toy train routes.
ReplyDeleteWhats Reed accomplished besides kicking 60 residents onto the curb for his toy police station, and shilling for you know who?
ReplyDeleteTime for another Recall Reed thingy.
ReplyDeleteExcept for contractors, nobody is too happy about the cost of this crap.
ReplyDeletePipeline to the downtown area for the criminal element.
ReplyDeleteI like how pouring endless money on to a fire is called "economic development." It's not like people in Reed's district don't have more buses than any other part of the city. If someone doesn't have a job in the third district, it's because they don't want one.
ReplyDeleteWell of course, let's build the niggers their own street car line and while we're at it, how about a new airport at say, around 47th and Prospect. Then, a ninety story hotel at 38th and Montgall, with a Plaza Shopping area at 49th and Wabash. Sure, let's build the niggers a new city!!!
ReplyDeleteSomeone explain to me why you send a street car into an area that is failing. If people are going out of their way to avoid 18th and Vine area now they sure as hell aren't going to ride the streetcar to thugville. Are we just trying to make it easier for the gangs to paint it up or what the fuck is the logic behind this?
ReplyDeleteI'd buy THAT for a dollar!
ReplyDeleteWe aplogize for interrupting this tepid thread but have just been informed, via the 4th Quarter Murder Spike post, that a mental condition called "Tonys Disease" has been officially entered into the DSM, characterized as being bullied by Jocks as a child, realizing you have woefully limited ambitions as an adult and, consequently, cursed to flounder in your hometown as a blogger.
ReplyDeleteIn light of your newfound fame, and given the fact that you will be an inspiration to other floundering fiction writers, we want you to consider this a blanket rejection slip in perpetuity.
Thank you.
-Men Who Suffer from Menstrual Cramps Monthly
+1 1:12 PM Bryan hits the nail on the head. If Jermaine Reed came up with one creative idea, the world would be ending. Let's connect the dots... Jermaine Reed helped by Congressman Cleaver and hired on the Green Impact Zone. Cleaver in turn helps Jermaine Reed. Cleaver still asking for favors for the mostly vacant, mostly City owned 18th Vine trap for tourism... yes, it's the Urban Scummit folks whispering in lil Jermaine's ear telling him "if you get this for us" we'll support your re-election. Nevermind what the people want or need as long as his political handlers are for it... they are GOD.
ReplyDeleteWe gladly accept your submission, "El Bryan has an aneurysm while riding his old timey bike and realizes, the HARD way, that a stovepipe hat is no substitute for a bike helmet"
ReplyDelete-Whiners Who Contunue Trying to Diffuse a Bomb which has Already Gone Off Gazzette
I'm really curious to see how Phase II is pulled off. Believe me, Next Rail KC is pulling their hair out trying to figure it out as well.
ReplyDeleteMost of the extensions can't raise the money needed to build them with the same TDD process that was used to steal money from one of Kansas City's few districts that generates wealth.
Plan B probably involves finding a way to qualify for Federal Government grants by extending the rail to the "poorest" parts of Kansas City, and then holding a city wide election explaining how much "free" money we'll get from the Feds.
Plan C probably looks more like city council just allocating transportation funds from road improvements directly to rail, bypassing the electorate altogether (that's how Cincinnati did it)
If they figure out how to make a TDD work on Independence Avenue, I won't be completely dumb-struck, but right now, I'm not convinced it will happen that way.
Of the over 100 murders every year in KCMO, 90% of them take place in a fifty-block area on the east side.
ReplyDeleteAnd both Reed and Brooks are on the council public safety committee.
And this is Reed's concern?
+++1 Again, Bryan hits the nail on the head. Reed's handlers are seeing just how they can further abuse the poor and complacent. You bet your ass they will ask for Community Development Block Grant; the same scheme that started the Ivanhoe downward spiral, Beacon Hill, Wendell Phillips, Vineyard, Roundtop... you name it it was a federal program that funded it.
ReplyDelete@3:17 PM What? Aldi's won't resolve the crime at 39th Prospect? Renaming Prospect to MLK Blvd won't help either? You are simple a pessimist. Shame on you! LOL
ReplyDelete12:53 PM Jason Parsons is happy to be sleeping with the enemy. If he weren't he'd be unemployable. Sure, he enjoys free rent from the City and is getting lucrative contracts that he neither deserves nor qualified for but hey... that's how Kansas City gets down. As long as it has a black penis and a pulse, real achievement isn't necessary.
ReplyDeleteNo way there is sufficient property tax base in that area to support this boondoggle...you can bet everyone else in the City will be taxed to pay for this stupidity!
ReplyDeleteThis will trigger Northland succession movement.
Hey Reed, remember what Schulte did to Cauthen.
ReplyDelete18th and Vine is such a fuckin loser. Even if it had a chance, just look at what happened to the 9th Inning.
ReplyDeleteI ask the guy (Won't say his name) what the rent was there, he tells me it was around 5 large. I said, "Jesus, the whole place is dead as hell, why wouldn't they keep you there at 1K a month, just to make the area look better and rent more property?"
He tells me, they said no, so now, ya got another fuckin empty building down there suck the Tax Payer dollar into a black hole. Bringing the toy train down there is such a fuckin loser, it is hard to get your arms around it.
3:17 "Of the over 100 murders every year in KCMO, 90% of them take place in a fifty-block area on the east side." is VERY far from the truth. Let's test you. Please kindly tell us the boundaries of your 50 blocks.
ReplyDelete1:44 PM Indeed.
ReplyDeleteYou just have to love the way things are done in KC. First you go out and buy a bunch of streetcars then you try to figure out where you need then to be running. Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteKansas City... a City that fails to plan, plans repeatedly to fail, especially under the leadership, or lack thereof, of this regressive City Council and Mayor.
ReplyDeleteAssume it will be financed by real estate and sales tax increases on properties next to line. Will this bring in enough $$$'s?
ReplyDeleteMaybe Reed should look at how many new jobs the downtown line has created. ZERO!
ReplyDeleteKANSAS CITY! THE CITY WILL COME TO YOU FOR THE MONEY TO PAY FOR THE JAMES AND JOHNSON EGO EXPRESS! YOU MUST REJECT THEM WHEN THE ELECTION COMES. QUESTION ONE WAS THE BEGINNING! TELL THESE PIGS NO MORE!
ReplyDeleteHere's what the Streetcar Authority has recommended it City Council:
ReplyDelete"Consultants recommended a new Transportation Development District levying the same taxes and assessments as the downtown TDD. The new TDD would stretch from the Missouri River south to 63rd (or whatever the southern terminus might be) and State Line east to I-435. The 1% sales tax would apply to the entire district, while the assessments would apply only to properties a reasonable distance from the actual streetcar lines."