This is getting to be almost a weekly occurrence - news media featuring suburbanites turning to the bus as gasoline prices rise, along with crowded buses that can barely keep up with demand.
KMBC-TV 9: Commuters switching to bus passes.
When will our elected leaders step up to the plate and create truly regional transit system to serve the growing need of the community?
Today I attended the second annual Missouri Joint Transportation Funding Summit in Jefferson City. The members of both House and Senate Transportation Committees hosted the event to discuss how to fund Missouri’s transportation system in the future. The need to fund and expand public transit was discussed much more than last year. Kudos to State Senator Joan Bray of St. Louis for repeatedly raising the bike/ped/transit/rail issues today.
One of the more interesting developments was a presentation by Kevin Ketih, MoDOT’s chief engineer. Kevin is usually perceived to be hostile towards alternative transportation modes, but today he presented MoDOT’s “wish list” for alternative transportation. It included a desire to spend $80 million a year for alternative modes.
The top of the list is $50 million a year for public transportation, which is a huge increase from the $6 million budgeted today. In addition, MoDOT would like to have $25 million/year for passenger rail, to improve the speed and reliability of Amtrak’s KC-St. Louis routes. He even went further to state that if MoDOT had an extra $1-3 billion it could implement high speed passenger rail in a triangle from KC to Springfield to St. Louis. That sounds really expensive, but it would be as little as $40 million a year over 25 years, the expected life of any future transportation funding program.
Of course, this is just a wish list. It is up to the General Assembly and ultimately the voters of Missouri to pay for these and all the other highway improvements. MoDOT often says that they can build anything we want, if we just give them the money. State leaders are still struggling to find a revenue source to pay for maintaining the current system, not to mention expanding it.
This is becoming a common story all over the metro - people looking for relief from rising transportation costs are turning to public transit only to find bus systems already at capacity and with little room for new passengers. Buses coming into the city from Johnson County, the Northland, and Eastern Jackson County are all at standing room only these days.
Unfortunately the KCATA cannot simply add more buses on these routes unless the suburbs pay for them. No city outside of KCMO has a dedicated transit tax, so their service in the suburbs is limited to what the cities pay for each year.
The Lee’s Summit City Council recently directed city staff to explore adding a fourth daily round trip to Downtown, at a cost of $34,000 per year.
Check out this cool new service from the KC Area Transportation Authority…
KCATA Offers “How to Ride” Clinics
As gas prices rise, more and more people are wondering if they could take public transportation to where they need to go. The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) will hold several “How-to-Ride” clinics to help people find out just how easy and economical it is to
ride The Metro.In six easy steps, people will learn how to read a schedule, figure out which bus to get on, how much it costs and how to pay, and where to get off. And yes, we’ll even take the fear out of transferring. In 10 minutes, people will be ready to Dump the Pump and ride The Metro
like a pro.“How to Ride” clinics will take place on the following days, locations and times.
Saturday, June 7th
10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Boardwalk Square MetroCenter
8700 North Boardwalk Avenue, KCMO (map/directions)
Just north of the Applebees at I-29 and NW Barry RoadSaturday, June 14th
10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
103rd & State Line Road Price Chopper, Northeast corner of parking lot,
1030 West 103rd Street, KCMO (map/directions)Those needing extra encouragement will be happy to know they are not alone. Thursday, June 19, is the third annual national Dump the Pump Day. Sponsored by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), the 2008 national Dump the Pump Day is a day that encourages people to ride public transportation to save money, conserve gasoline, and help reduce greenhouse gases.
Just everyone else who has chosen to depend on automotive transportation, school districts are facing the problem of how to deal with rising fuel costs. For the first time ever, the Blue Springs School District expects to spend more on fuel for schools buses than it spends on the actual buses. It is a problem that is sure to hit all school districts in the metro soon, and then hit taxpayers when the schools ask for more operating money.
One solution is to get kids out of the buses and onto their own two feet. It used to be that most kids walked or biked to school, and buses were used only for kids living in the country. Now only 16% of American kids walk or bike school, and schools maintain giant fleets of buses to transport kids short distances. Even worse, many suburbs have chosen to make it difficult and dangerous for kids to walk or bike to school. Many neighborhoods lake sidewalks and many schools are located on busy roads.
There is a national movement called Safe Routes to School that seeks to reverse this situation. The Federal government even provides grants for cities and schools to implement educational problems and build sidewalks. For information getting money for your community, check out the Mid-America Regional Council.
Instead of spending our tax money putting fuel into dinosaur school buses, lets spend some of it on building sidewalks, crosswalks, bike racks, etc.
A recent letter from Johnson County Transit to its riders illustrates the surge in people turning to transit lately. Many buses are at capacity or standing room only. And the number of new transit users prompted The JO to try educating folks about good bus riding etiquette.
Unfortunately, it would be very difficult for them to add more service. Unlike KCMO, none of the suburbs have a dedicated transit funding source. If you’d like to see better transit in Johnson (or the Missouri suburbs), then write to your mayor and city council. They are folks that have to be convinced that transit is something worthy of public investment.
Continue reading ‘Johnson County buses straining under surging ridership’ »
The KC Star’s political blog reports on a new funding shortfall for Missouri Amtrak service. Even though the state just increased the budget by $600,000, Amtrak has come back and says that rising costs mean it now needs $400,000 more. It’s no secret that rising oil prices are making everything more expensive, but it seems curious that Amtrak and MoDOT wouldn’t have settled on a price during the budget process.
Anyway, the shortfall will most likely be made up with a fare increase and a request for more money from the state.
The Star recently reported that Kansas City ranks number seven out of the fifty largest metro areas for the number of teens killed in automobile crashes. The article talks all about teen driving, but completely ignores the lack of alternatives to driving.
Perhaps the lack of transportation choice is one of the reasons why our teen fatality rate is so high. Kansas routinely ranks near the bottom when comes to things like public transportation, bicycling, walking, etc. Most teens in the metro area have few if any options besides the automobile if they want to work or participate in after school activies.
Continue reading ‘KC ranks high for teen fatalities, is lack of transit a reason?’ »
The directors of the Missouri and Kansas Departments of Transportation will be the guests on Steve Kraske’s Up To Date radio show on Wednesday. Please make sure that the discussion about the future of transportation in Kansas City includes bicycle and pedestrian issues. Call and/or emailing questions to either Pete Rahn of MoDOT or Deb Miller of KDOT.
Up-To-Date
Wednesday, May 28, 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon
89.3 FM or www.kcur.org
Get your question on the air:
Call 816-235-2888 or email uptodate@kcur.org
Some possible questions to ask…
How will MoDOT and KDOT help cities respond to surging demand for transportation alternatives like bicycling, walking and transit?
What are the two states doing to reduce the number pedestrians and bicyclists injured or killed on state highways? (Missouri likes to tout its reduction in highway deaths, but forgets that bicycle fatalities have not decreased at the same time).
Will MoDOT quit messing around with bike/ped on the Paseo Bridge and just “get ‘r done” ? ?
How will MoDOT stick to Pete Rahn’s promise to integrate bike/ped into future projects after he killed the Complete Streets bill?
The Star has a story this morning about new bus service on the way for KCK, but it doesn’t go into a lot of specifics. The city recently recevied grants from the Federal government’s Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program (CMAQ) to add Sunday service and improve weekday and Saturday service.
A new State Avenue route will link Downtown KCMO with Village West, including stops in Downtown KCK and the Indian Springs Transit Center. This will be a huge boost for getting folks from homes in the east of KCK to jobs in the west. This new route will run seven days a week, and is temporary solution until the State Avenue MAX line is up and running a couple of years. It’s something that should have happened years ago when the Speedway was first built, but better late than never.
On Sundays the new route will be suplemented by service on three existing routes: #104 Argentine, #106 Quindaro, and #107 Seventh Street.
As great as the new service is, it is only temporary. The CMAQ grant is only for the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years. Then the Federal money goes away and KCK has to find local money to continue it. It is a pattern that repeats itself often in the metro area - getting Federal grants to start new transit service and then struggling to continue it in the absence of regional transit funding.
The other caveat is that the 2010 money is imaginary. The current Federal transportation bill runs out in 2009, so the 2010 funding is a big assumption that the next program will include similar CMAQ funding.
