Check out this great article from the Washington Post on the problems that seniors are facing as they become too old to drive and find themselves becoming virtual shut-ins in the car-dependent suburbs. The narrowing of transportation options has a direct impact on the livability of their communities.

The generation that gave birth to suburbia and the two-car garage is reaching the age at which driving, for many, no longer seems like such a swell option…. “The concern is that when they no longer can drive, they will find themselves trapped in their homes in suburban neighborhoods where there are no sidewalks, or, if there are sidewalks, there’s no place to walk to”

While specific to the Washington, DC metro area, it certainly applies to Kansas City.  Seniors in KC are in an even tougher situation since our region lacks the suburban public transit network present in DC.  They also have many more walkable suburban town centers with services like groceries, doctors, shops, etc. in close proximity.

KC seniors who want to remain independent without driving are mostly limited to the Downtown/Plaza/Brookside corridor.  While there are a few fledgling possibilities in the suburbs (e.g. Zona Rosa, Downtown Lee’s Summit, or Prairie Village), these areas are islands unto themselves and lack the full range of services for shopping, health care, and entertainment.  Grocery stores and hospitals are usually beyond walking distance of even the best suburban downtown district.

Reforming our land use policies to encourage development of more mixed-use suburban town centers would give suburban seniors better options for “aging in place” in the communities where they have lived for decades.   Linking these suburban town centers with public transit would give seniors mobility around the metro area. People shouldn’t be uprooted from their existing social networks simply because they stop driving.

Lee’s Summit recently completed an updated Transit Demand Analysis (PDF) to determine what needs exist in the community, and what types of service are feasible.  Recommendations center around bolster the current express service to Downtown Kansas City and expanding the MetroFlex service that transports seniors and the disabled within the city.

The analysis found strong community demand for improved transit service in Lee’s Summit.  This fact should encourage city leaders to take a more active role in planning for a regional bus and rail system in the Missouri suburbs.  Lee’s Summit already has a leading role in planning for a combined rail and trail corridor on the old Rock Island Line, and is working with neighbors to secure funds to purchase it.

Identified transit needs in Lee’s Summit:

Commutes to Downtown KCMO
The current #152X Raytown/Lee’s Summit route was expanded in 2008. Additional needs include new express routes from the western and eastern parts of the city, plus a mid-day service to improve the flexibility and convenience of the service.

Commutes within Lee’s Summit
There is no fixed-route service for residents who work within the community.  Dispersed housing and employment centers will be a huge challenge for addressing this need.

Senior and disabled service
Population growth and dispersal are increasing the need for more service over a larger area. As of January 2010 the #252 MetroFlex service will increase hours and cover a larger territory of Lee’s Summit, providing better access to medical care, shopping, etc.

Reverse Commutes
Service into Lee’s Summit from other cities is difficult since the #152 express only stops at a park-and-ride lot, and there is no intra-city service to transfer people to their workplaces.

Commutes to other suburbs
Demand is growing for service to Johnson County, especially the College Boulevard corridor.

Additional data:

70% of Lee’s Summit residents work outside of the city, yet the southeast suburbs have the least amount of transit service in the metro area.

Lee’s Summit only spends 30% of the federal transit money available to it, even though a quirk of its Census designation means that the city’s local match is much less than other metro suburbs. This means modest local investments could have a huge impact.

3% of people who work in Downtown KC use the #152X bus.  5% would be a realistic goal in the near term.

A new analysis of data from the federal economic stimulus reveals that investment in public transit has produced almost twice as many jobs as the investment in highways.  Every $1 billion spent on roads and highways resulted in about 8,700 months of work.  For transit, it was over 16,000 months of work for the same investment.

Locally, jobs-rich transit projects are getting very little of the available money. In Missouri, 11% of the stimulus went to transit.  In Kansas it’s only 8% for transit. To be fair to MoDOT and KDOT, much of the funding distribution was determined by federal formulas and not state discretion.

The main criteria for the transportation stimulus was 1) speed of construction and 2) number of jobs created/retained. This new report shows that any future stimulus program should make a bigger investment in transit in order to maximize its job creation and retention benefits.  It also indicates that state and local governments could better stimulate their economies by increasing local investments in transit systems.

Analysis Finds that Funding Public Transit Creates More Jobs Than Funding Highway Projects
by Center for Neighborhood Technology, Public Interest Research Group, and Smart Growth America.

MoDOT ARRA projects (PDF)

KDOT ARRA information

Johnson County Transit is experimenting with a new weekend service to the Country Club Plaza for shopping and viewing the Plaza lights.  The new Route 901 runs every 20 minutes on Friday nights and Saturday/Sunday afternoons and evenings.  The service starts at the NE JoCo offices at Martway and Lamar in Mission, and the fare is a cheap $1. The pilot project runs through December 27th.

It will be interesting to see how The JO’s foray into evening/weekend service works. Hopefully it leads to expanded service in the future.

JO Route 901 info, map, and timetable.

Taking the bus is a great way to avoid the traffic jams and garage queues at the Country Club Plaza lighting ceremony.  The KCATA will be running extra MAX service, every 15 minutes, between 4:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. Park-and-ride lots are located at 3rd and Grand in the River Market and 74th and Wornall in Waldo. MAX will be diverted from its regular Plaza station, and stopping at 47th and Main Streets instead.

Other buses also serve the Plaza, but will be running on reduced holiday schedules.  The #51-Broadway bus runs once an hour from the park-and-ride lot at Ward Parkway mall, 89th and State Line Road, or the 10th and Main Transit Center.  The #57-South Oak runs once per hour from 3rd and Grand.

See the KCATA rider bulletin for more information.

Today the Chiefs announced that they have contracted with a private motorcoach service to provide transit to football games at Arrowhead Stadium, replacing KCATA Metro service that was cut due to budget problems.

The new private service will cost $17.50 and serve three locations – Metro North Mall and Ameristar Casino in KCMO, and the Rosana Square strip mall in southern Johnson County. There will be no service from the hotel and convention facilities in Downtown and on the Country Club Plaza.

See kcchiefs.com for the detals.

Tonight the Plaza Branch of the KCMO Public Library hosts a lecture and book signing with Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do. It’s a very interesting analysis of the psychological, physical, and technical factors of traffic.  The book includes bicycling and walking, so this event will be of interest to alternative transportation fans as well. Rainy Day Books will be selling Traffic at the event, and the author will sign copies purchased there this evening.

Tom Vanderbilt
Monday, September 14th, 6:30 p.m.
Plaza Branch Library
4801 Main Street, KCMO 64112 (map)
More info and RSVP.

The metro area has developed a regional application for the latest round of economic stimulus funding for transportation projects.  The Mid-America Regional Council, KC Area Transportation Authority, and City of Kansas City, MO have joined together to create a $93 million multi-modal plan including streets, transit, freight rail, bicycling, walking, and ADA. The application will go the federal government where it will compete for part of a national pot of $1.5 billion.

This particular grant program places a special emphasis on transportation investments that enhance the sustainability, livability, and safety of communities. KCMO Resolution 090716 details the specific allocations proposed for each project.

Green Impact Zone: $26.1 Million
Street resurfacing, sidewalks, traffic signals, pervious pavement, transit facilities, and Troost Bridge over Brush Creek. More about the Green Impact Zone.

Regional Transit: $27.5 Million
Design and engineering of a Downtown streetcar car system.  Infrastructure improvements on future Bus Rapid Transit routes include North Oak, Metcalf, State Avenue, and Easter Jackson County.

Bicycle and Pedestrian: $12.1 Million
Multi-use trails, on-street bicycle routes (including bike lanes), bicycle parking, sidewalks, crosswalks, ADA accommodations, and comprehensive education and encouragement programs.

Rail and Front Street: $21.8 Million
Freight railroad infrastructure.  Reloction/expansion of Front Street west of Paseo Bridge.

We should know by the end of January if our application is funded. See KCMO Resolution 090716 for more details.

Today the KCATA launched a new service to provide live tracking of all buses in the Metro system.  The new WebWatch system lets you see real-time arrivals, sign up for alerts from your favorite bus routes, and see the location of any bus on a Google Map. Together with the existing Google Transit service, the new WebWatch gives KC transit users very powerful tools for getting the most out of our bus system.

Insider tip: Bookmark the ADA version of the site for quick and easy access on mobile devices.

Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009, 4:30 – 6 p.m.
Hilton Garden Inn
520 Minnesota Ave., Kansas City, KS

The KC Area Transportation Agency and the Unified Government of Wyandotte/KCK will hold a public meeting on the proposed State Avenue Bus Rapid Transit project.  The project would add a third MAX line from Downtown KCMO to Downtown KCK and out to the Village West development and the Kansas Speedway (the second MAX line will begin service along Troost Avenue in 2010).

The State Avenue MAX line is scheduled to open in 2012, even though KCK has yet to figure out how it will pay to operate the service.  KCK has no dedicated transit funding. Instead, it makes annual allocations from its general budget for KCATA’s Metro service and its own The Bus.