The success of a bus route in such a suburban area show that there is a huge unmet need for better transit service between suburbs, not just suburb-to-downtown commutes. Unfortunately the K-10 Connector is funded with a two-year federal grant. Johnson County will have come up with its own money to keep the service going. It ought to be a no-brainer to include this route in the Smart Moves plan and make it part of a regional transit system. Sadly the Kansas side of the metro doesn’t seem ready to join a regional system any time soon.

• KC Star: Bus riders give K-10 route a thumbs up
• K-10 schedule and route map

Riders give K-10 bus route a thumbs-up

By BRAD COOPER
The Kansas City Star

In a region where buses are shunned for cars, this one isn’t.

With gas prices soaring, riders toting backpacks, briefcases and laptops eagerly line up for the daily bus ride on Kansas 10 between Lawrence and Johnson County.

Many are students. Others are faculty. Some are commuting professionals.

“It gets really packed sometimes,” said Steve Sobczak, a Kansas City, Kan., resident who has been a rider on the route since its inception.

A little more than a year old, the route — known as the K-10 Connector — is the hottest in the metro area. Ridership has more than doubled in a year. Only the downtown rapid bus line known as MAX comes close to such a high-profile explosion in ridership.

An ironic outgrowth of a highway study, the K-10 Connector is tapping a demand for transit that has been eyed for years. And it could be a lesson for building bus ridership in other parts of the metro area.

It demonstrates what can happen when you identify popular destination centers and where the people are who want to get there, transportation planners say.

Then, if it’s fast and convenient, people will ride.

“The lesson is, you have to do some homework behind the services you’re planning,” said Mell Henderson, director of transportation for the Mid-America Regional Council.

Transportation planners did that three years ago when they explored the market along the K-10 corridor.

They came up with a route that fills a niche market connecting two cities that share students and workers.

They found that about 8,000 people commute to work between Douglas and Johnson counties each day, and 1,300 Johnson County Community College students call Douglas County home.

The study, done when gasoline was significantly cheaper, is proving to be prophetic. And now a route designed with students in mind is serving working commuters as well.

It’s not uncommon for commuters to rely on their co-workers to pick them up and then drop them off at the community college so they can catch the bus back to Lawrence.

Others drive to Johnson County on Monday, leave their vehicles at the community college after the workday, and take the bus between Lawrence and Overland Park all week. On Friday, they drive home.

“They could double the ridership if they added a few more buses and changed the route a little bit,” said Robert Priest, who takes the bus to his job at Honeywell in Olathe.

Priest is among those who park at the community college so they can take the bus.

“The focus was for the students, but it’s very advantageous for the commuter who works here but lives in Lawrence,” Priest said.

The number of boardings on the route has more than doubled during the first part of this year, and there’s little mystery why.

“The final incentive was the price of gas,” said Casey Shook, who just started using the bus a week ago to get to his architecture job at Black & Veatch.

From February to April, the number of trips increased to 27,942, compared with 13,721 during the same period last year. Last month, the bus averaged 499 rider trips a day. The first month the route started, January 2007, it averaged 225 rider trips a day.

Already, requests have come in for the bus to stop in De Soto and Eudora. But Johnson County transit officials say making those intermediate stops could diminish the K-10 express service.

“This route is as direct as we can make it,” said Chuck Ferguson, Johnson County’s deputy transportation director. “When people get on the bus, they feel that for the majority of the bus ride they are expressing on the highway just like they would do if they were driving.”

Transit planners say the route has unique aspects that might be hard to duplicate in other parts of the metro area:

•The route covers 34 miles and makes only five stops. Riders say the route saves them wads of cash in gas money. The fare is $2.50 a trip.

“It’s a good price for what you get,” said biology student Katie Howard.

•The route connects three colleges with thousands of students: Johnson County Community College, the University of Kansas’ Edwards Campus in Overland Park and KU’s main campus in Lawrence.

•Riders see the bus line as competitive with a car in terms of cost and convenience.

Mike Santos rides the bus daily to his job as an assistant city attorney at Overland Park City Hall. He doesn’t think he loses any expediency leaving his car behind.

“If you drive the whole way, you have to work your way through all the stoplights and traffic in Overland Park and all the stoplights and traffic in Lawrence,” Santos said.

There are outstanding issues, however. Some riders complain about the lack of good bus connections once they arrive in Johnson County.

“It’s getting from here to anywhere else that’s the problem because it’s so decentralized,” said Shook as he prepared to board the bus outside the community college.

Others complain about gaps in service. The buses generally run an hour apart except at midday, when they’re two hours apart.

And then there’s the crowding. Some riders say the bus is popular enough that it can be cramped at times.

Ferguson acknowledges those issues and said he would love to address them but is limited by money.

The K-10 service costs $364,000 a year, of which $200,000 comes from a federal grant that runs out in 2009. After that, Johnson County will have to find a way to sustain the service.

“I can’t throw out the kind of service that would be more supportive of that system, although that is in our plan for the future,” he said.

The early success of the K-10 Connector is instructive for how transit planners across the region might fill unmet demand for bus service.

“We know there is untapped demand in other parts of the community as well. It’s just having to finance it to put the service out there,” said Dick Jarrold, chief engineer for the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority.

Some of those markets include connecting the rapidly developing Shoal Creek area in the Northland to downtown. Another possibility might be service to the jobs at the freight center and intermodal hub at the former Richards-Gebaur Airport.

Then there are the ongoing efforts to find a way to get people to jobs from downtown Kansas City, Kan., out to the Village West retail complex in western Wyandotte County.

Jarrold agrees that the K-10 route has unique features, but he thinks the lessons learned could be applied to transit in some untapped markets.

THE BUS BASICS
Cost: Riding the bus route costs $2.50 one way. A 10-ride pass is available for $15. Passes can be purchased from the bus driver or by writing to Johnson County Transit, 1701 W. 56 Highway, Olathe, KS 66061.

Schedule: Buses generally run about every hour during peak periods early in the morning and in late afternoon during the workweek. Service starts about 6:30 a.m.

Stops: North entrance of Carlsen Center at Johnson County Community College, KU Edwards Campus, and in Lawrence at Clinton and Crestline, 19th and Naismith, and Haskell University, north of the stadium.

Also, Amtrak is currenly running a special on Missouri service. Through June 15 if you take a friend you can get 50% off the second ticket.

The Car-Free Challenge runs May 10th through May 16th. Sign-up online and log your miles during the week to be eligible for great prizes.

Can you go car-free just once during the week?  How about a whole day?  Or even the whole week?

Thanks to everyone who contacted their legislators on this issue. Please stay tuned for news on the important project to reduce delays and improve reliability of the Missouri Amtrak service.

Saturday, May 3rd at Family Bicycles in Waldo. Find out more

40% of trips that people take in urban areas are only 2 miles or less.  These short trips to the store or library can easily be switched from the automobile to the bicycle.

More on the April open houses.

• KC Star: Prairie Village listens to ideas for 75th Street.
• Village Vision 75 planning project.

Prairie Village listens to ideas for 75th Street

By JENNIFER BHARGAVA
The Kansas City Star

Residents are the driving force behind planning for a new and improved 75th Street in Prairie Village.

So the city is looking for their suggestions on how to beautify and enhance the corridor.

The process for getting their input began Tuesday evening with the city’s first public meeting on improvements for the corridor. More than 80 residents showed up for the meeting, which was conducted by HNTB, the contractor for development of the 75th Street plan.

“Our overall goal is to make 75th Street viable for the future,” said Brian Comer, the senior planner for HNTB. “Beautification is one of our main elements because we want people to drive through Prairie Village and not get it confused with Overland Park or Kansas City.”

After a brief introduction, residents were placed into groups where they collaborated with one another about their concerns about and hopes for 75th Street’s future.

They looked at five major aspects — land use, transportation, pedestrian connectivity, visual enhancement and overall vision.

Dale Warman, a member of the 75th Street Steering Committee, visited each table during the one-hour collaboration session and was pleased to hear similar issues addressed at each group.

Several residents wished to see more green space between the sidewalk and the busy street. Others wanted mass transit. Many requested codes enforcement on rental homes along the street.

The process reminded Warman of why the city is beautifying 75th Street — residents had expressed interest. While the city was getting input for Village Vision, its comprehensive plan, it asked residents to name the places in Prairie Village that needed improvement. A majority of residents named 75th Street.

“It’s great that people are thinking similarly because that makes it easier for us,” said Warman. “And, of course, there are some issues where they don’t agree, but they are willing to meet halfway. As a city, we want a solution, and working together is what it’s all about.”

Eric Collins, who lives on the corner of 75th Street and Lamar Avenue, said traffic was the biggest concern for him.

“The traffic on 75th Street is terrible — people run the stoplight near my house all the time,” Collins said. “Trucks are going 40 to 45 miles per hour at night, and it makes my house shake. It’s like living by railroad tracks.”

He also hopes cleaning up the street will be a part of the city’s beautification plan.

He’s tired of picking up soda cans and fast-food wrappers from his lawn and the sidewalk.

His ideas — along with those of his neighbors — will be compiled by HNTB in the next month. Planners will determine the most common concerns and ideas and hold another public meeting, in June, to look at alternative ways of implementing improvements.

“We’ve heard a lot of the same types of things from each table,” Comer said. “There is a lot of excitement about visual enhancement, neighborhood preservation, and making the street more pedestrian friendly.”

He also hopes residents will help prioritize each issue and create a timeline. He wants them to help decide which ideas should be implemented in a few years and which should be implemented in 20 to 30 years from now.

Near the end of the meeting, residents gathered with their neighbors and discussed their thoughts on the process.

“Obviously this is a work in progress, and I think it’s exciting that citizens are giving input and ideas, whether I agree with it or not,” said Barbara Brown, of Prairie Village. “We live in a nice city, and hopefully more people will go to these meetings.”

Please write a note to your legislators supporting the preservation and expansion of passenger rail in Missouri.

Amtrak service across Missouri is notoriously slow and unreliable. It has the dubious distinction as the only Amtrak route to be losing riders as the rest of the country sees a surge in passenger rail.  The Missouri Department of Transportation is asking the General Assembly for $10 million to speed up the trains and reduce delays.  The ultimate goal is to go from two trains a day do six, with express trains making the trip in four hours.

Unfortunately the General Assembly is going in the other direction, and considering a move to slash funding and leave us with only one train a day. With the twin problems of rising gas prices and climate change, we need to be expanding transportation options, not reducing choices.

Please write a note to your legislators supporting the preservation and expansion of passenger rail in Missouri.

More information:

• MoDOT rail improvement proposal, October 2007
  
• Southeast Missourian: MoDOT says more money for Amtrak would boost ridership
• MoDOT passenger rail info and schedules
• Midwest High Speed rail

The new service officially debuts on Tuesday, Earth Day, with an event at the offices of the Downtown Council. While the regular Google Maps does not yet have the transit option available, you can still try it now going directly the Google Transit web site: www.google.com/transit

The proposed line would connect Downtown KCMO, Downtown KCK, the Indian Springs transit hub, KCK Community College, and Village West. They haven’t decided how to pay for it, but KCK Mayor Joe Reardon has been talking with KCMO Mayor Mark Funkhouser about the possibility of joining a regional transit funding system.

State Avenue BRT would fit in very nicely with other regional plans. KCMO will soon start construction on a second MAX line on Troost Avenue and is planning for a third on North Oak. Johnson County is even thinking about BRT on Metcalf Avenue and I-35. In a few years the region will have built a decent chunk of the SmartMoves transit plan, even without regional funding or light rail.

Taking transit cues from Kansas City, Wyandotte County is positioning itself to be the first community to build a rapid bus line outside downtown.

Consultants are recommending a MAX-like bus service for the State Avenue corridor between downtown Kansas City and the flourishing Village West retail complex in western Wyandotte County.

The goal, in part, is to move people from transit-dependent areas near Kansas City, Kan., to one of the metro area’s hottest retail centers, where there are thousands of jobs.

“I think it certainly sounds like a good plan, and it’s certainly needed,” Wyandotte County resident Beverly Johnson said Tuesday after listening to the consultants’ report.

As it now stands, it takes a bus about an hour to get from downtown Kansas City to Village West, and about 45 minutes from downtown Kansas City, Kan. Transit planners hope that a rapid bus line could cut travel times by at least 12 minutes and possibly as much as 20 minutes.

The transit service proposed for the State Avenue corridor is similar to the Metro Area Express, or MAX, service that runs between downtown and the Country Club Plaza. The $21 million MAX service, which makes limited stops along Main Street, was credited with increasing ridership in the corridor by more than 30 percent in its first year.

The service proposed for State Avenue would run generally in mixed traffic, but like the MAX line, could run in its own lane during rush hour. It would make limited stops, sometimes ¼ or ½ mile apart, and have the ability to hold a traffic signal green as it approaches an intersection.

The consultant’s proposal would cost about $26 million to build with about $3 million a year in operating costs. Funding, however, is not currently available.

The consultants did not recommend running the rapid bus line in a lane physically separated from traffic. That kind of service, they said, would cost more than $100 million to build and $3.5 million a year to operate.

Meanwhile, in Kansas City, officials are designing a second bus rapid transit line on Troost Avenue. That service is not expected to start until 2009 or 2010, officials have said.

The Wyandotte County study ruled out light rail in the short term because it would cost so much — an estimated $500 million — and would not attract enough riders.

Planners said there is not enough population density to generate sufficient ridership for rail.

The study also ruled out running express buses on Interstate 70, because it would only serve riders trying to get from one end of the corridor to the other, missing some in the middle.

Morris Holmes, a Wyandotte County resident, urged planners to take a bold approach and build a rapid bus line with its own separated lane. He said something special like that was needed to attract riders.

“If you put the same thing in place, we’ll have the same lackluster system,” he said.