On Tuesday, February 17th several environmental groups from across Missouri will host the 2009 Conservation Lobby Day, and this year they are including transportation as a topic.  This is an excellent event for those of you who are interested in the environmental benefits of transit, bicycling, walking, passenger rail, etc. More information

And don’t forget Missouri Bicycle Federation’s 3rd Annual Bicycle Day at the Capitol on February 24th.  Bicyclists from all over Missouri will come to Jefferson City to talk to legislators about the recreational, health, transportation, and environmental benefits of bicycling. More information

I hope to see some of you in Jefferson City talking to our elected leaders about better policies to give Missourians real transportation choice!

The Bond Amendment was defeated, thanks to thousands of messages from people like you!

The economic stimulus bill currently before Congress includes $2.2 billion dollars for high speed rail development and $5.5 billion for public transit improvements.  Unfortunately, our own Kit Bond is wants to give that money to more highway building.

Kansas City stands to benefit from both programs. Chicago-St. Louis-Kansas City is designated as a future high speed rail corridor. Advocates in Kansas are working to extend passenger rail from Wichita to Kansas City.  The KCATA is requesting federal money for a smaller light rail line from Downtown to the Plaza.

All of these and more are in jeopardy if Kit Bond gets his way.  Please call today and follow up with an email. Click here get the details and send a message.

On Wednesday, December 17 the Kansas Department of Transportation will hold a regional summit to discuss the future of the transportation system in Wyandotte, Johnson, Leavenworth, Miami, and Douglas Counties in Kansas.

Wednesday December 17
9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. (registration at 8:30 a.m.)
Jack Reardon Civic Center
500 Minnesota Ave, KCK 66101 (map/directions/transit)
RSVP to angela@shockeyconsulting.com or 913-645-4780

This is an excellent opportunity to let KDOT and your local electd officials know that it is critical for the region to provide transportation choices for all citizens.  Specific things you can mention include:

• Dedicated transit funding for the current bus system and future transit improvements
• Inclusion of bicycle and pedestrian facilities in new transportation projects
• Enforcement of traffic laws increase safety
• Complete Streets policies to ensure roads are built for all users – motorists, transit users, pedestrians, bicyclists, and the disabled.
• Support efforts to extend Amtrak passenger to rail from KC to Wichita, and on to Oklahoma and Texas.

This week our neighbors on the other side of the state celebrated the opening of the new Gateway Transportation Center, a multimodal facility that serves as the hub Amtrak intercity trains, Greyhound intercity buses, and local bus and light rail. The center is located at 14th and Hwy 40, just a block south of the Scottrade arena and a block east of Union Station.

Even though light rail is on hold here in KC, St. Louis shows us that we still have a lot of room to improve our existing transportation system and its scattered facilities. Right now we have a bus hub is at 10th & Main, but Amtrak is a mile south at Union Station and Greyhound is a mile east at 11th and Troost.  To make matters even worse, there is no single bus route that connects all three, not even the flagship MAX..  Someone needing to transfer between Amtrak and Greyhound would need to take two different buses to get there.

As our three Missouri counties move forward with the Smart Moves regional transit plan, we need to be considering ways to connect all of our transit systems and provide seemless transfer between each one.

As we’ve reported before, the Missouri Department of Transportation has a $10 million plan to begin improving the dismal performance of the KC-St. Louis Amtrak route.  The General Assembly recently allocated $5 million, and today it was announced that the Federal government has matched that with $3.3 million.  This funding will enable construciton of rail capacity improvements near the town of California in Mid-Missouri, and the design of future improvements near Knob Noster east of Kansas City.

Despite having one of the worst one-time records in the entire Amtrak system, high gas prices and congestion on I-70 have driven increased ridership on the KC-STL route over the last several months.

KC Star: Federal grant help shorten Amtrak delays in Missouri.

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.

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 Missouri General Assembly has sent a capital improvements bill to the Governor and it includes $5 million for improving Missouri’s Kansas City to St. Louis Amtrak service.  If a $5 million federal match is secured then the money will be used to build two new sidings along the route. These sidings will allow long coal trains to pull over so passenger trains can pass by.

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.

Let’s Go KC just received word from Tom Shrout at Citizens for Modern Transportation that the Senate/House Conference Committee has agreed to the $8 million request to continue the current four trains per day between Kansas City and St. Louis. The request for $5 million for upgrades to reduce congestion will come up later in a separate bill.

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.

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