Kansas City Votes Light Rail…Sort of

Kansas City Votes Light Rail…Sort of
by Ron McLinden

On November 7, 2006 Kansas Citians voted for light rail—at least, they voted for the notion of light rail. Voters approved a 25–year extension of a 3/8 cent city sales tax for transit (beginning April 1, 2009) to build a 27–mile light rail line concocted (back-of-the-envelope style) by perennial light rail initiative petitioner Clay Chastain.

Passage (53%–47%) has thrown the regional transit scene into mild disarray. Transit advocates had intended to ask voters to renew the 3/8 cent tax (passed in 2003 for five years as an interim measure to supplement an existing 1/2 cent city sales tax for transit) in the form of county-wide sales taxes to fund transit expansion throughout the region.

City officials, the Area Transportation Authority, Mid-America Regional Council, and the Regional Transit Alliance are interpreting the vote as evidence of public support for light rail—perhaps in response to the taste of $3 gasoline that we've all had—rather than an explicit endorsement of Chastain's exact proposal. They are currently laying the groundwork for the studies that will have to be done to prepare a specific light rail plan that is both financially and technically feasible, and that will satisfy Federal Transit Administration requirements for federal funding.
PS: Legislators should take note that voter sentiment for the kind of highways-only transportation funding plan that's expected to be introduced in the Missouri General Assembly might not be well received.