Transit Activist Clay Chastain Proposes Collabo With New Jackson County Train Trax



We've long contended that the toy train plans of Jackson County Exec Mike Sanders are nothing more than vaporware . . . BUT today Kansas City transit activist Clay Chastain offers a practical repurposing of the newly acquired lines as part of his upcoming petition. Checkit:

Chastain: New Light Rail Initiative will activate commuter rail on newly purchased Rock Island corridor.

Forget the need for a difficult bi-state transit tax or even a problematic Jackson County transit tax to finance a much needed regional rail-based transit system for the KC Metro area. I have a better plan that is coming soon to grocery stores near you...
The new light rail / commuter rail -based transit initiative, which includes a 30-mile light rail spine (or foundation line) from Cerner to KCI and a first phase suburban commuter rail line from Union Station to the Truman Sports Complex, is timed perfectly to provide the plan and financing necessary to spawn a regional suburban commuter rail system.

The first line running from Lee's Summit to Union Station. Once there, passengers would conveniently board the city's light rail train that would then take them on to Kansas City International Airport, the Plaza, etc.

Jackson County and the ATA's purchase of the 17-mile rail corridor (the old Rock Island rail corridor that stretches between the Truman Sports Complex and Lee's Summit) now makes it possible for the commuter rail line proposed in the initiative to be extended from the Truman Sports Complex all the way to the county's biggest and fastest growing suburb.

I believe once Kansas City voters pass the new transit initiative, and commuter rail is constructed from Union Station to the Truman Sports Complex, suburbs such as Raytown Independence, Blue Springs, and Lee's Summit will then pass their own municipal taxes to extend Kansas City's starter commuter rail line to their own communities.

Individual suburbs paying a little to tie into the city's spectacular light rail / commuter rail system is, for them, value off the scale. Kansas City mutually benefits by having access to a suburban commuter rail system that connects its citizens to job centers and destinations in the suburbs.

Presto... a new Missouri Suburban Commuter Rail System, that ties into the city's 30-mile light rail spine at Union Station, is born.

Presto, presto... Kansas likely follows suit and build their own commuter rail line from Olathe to Union Station (along I-35) to tie into Missouri's new rail system.

Presto, presto, presto... A brand new metro wide light rail / suburban commuter rail-based transit system, with no new new bi-state tax or Jackson County tax needed, is born.

Then our communities future prosperity will flow a river.

Clay Chastain
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Comments

  1. Not a bad idea.......but the simple minded rubes will find issues....while looking for more free shit from Uncle Sambo.

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  2. "coming soon to grocery stores near you"

    Help me, I've fallen and I can't get up!

    ReplyDelete
  3. everybody wants all roads to lead downtown, and this is obsolete thinking. I am as apt to go from OP to Lees Summit or KCK. That is not possible in any of the plans that I see. Fifty years ago, Daddies went to work downtown. Now Moms and Dads are just a likely to leave KCMO every morning and go to Olathe or Lees Summit for their jobs. If the transportation plans don't include trips outside of downtown, then it all remains a toy train. This "downtown" prejudice is killing us.

    ReplyDelete

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