The problem in Kansas City and elsewhere, however, is that the rules created under the pretense of coronavirus mitigation are not being applied evenly, or perhaps even legally. Enter a lawsuit by The Blue Line, a bar in Kansas City’s River Market district, that takes issue not only with what the city’s emergency orders do, but even how they were imposed in the first place.

According to The Blue Line’s petition, the emergency orders, which KCMO announced Nov. 16 and that went into effect throughout the city and county on Nov. 20, are illegal without approval by the KCMO City Council or Jackson County Legislature and unconstitutional.

According to the lawsuit, The Blue Line said it pays “a premium to Kansas City and the State of Missouri” for a 3 a.m. liquor license and that 40% of its revenue comes after 10 p.m.

That makes the closure of bars and restaurants—while casinos are allowed to continue round-the-clock operations, movie theaters can stay open past 10 p.m., and alcohol sales are permitted to continue at liquor and grocery stores— “arbitrary and capricious,” according to the lawsuit.

I agree with the bar that these rules are arbitrary and capricious. Casinos have not acquired a special immunity to coronavirus that would permit them to remain open in ways competing bars and restaurants cannot—though I’ll note that my solution isn’t to shut down casinos, but rather to leave bars and restaurants alone or otherwise subject to the same set of rules these big businesses get to abide by. What’s good enough for Walmart is good enough for everyone else; likewise, what’s good enough for big entertainment venues like casinos is good enough for the corner bar and grill.

We know that state laws protecting gun stores from being shut down during emergencies work, with local shops and big retailers having demonstrated throughout this crisis that they can remain open and operate safely regardless of their size. The Missouri Legislature must pass a law to ensure that all businesses similarly situated are able to enjoy similar protections to ensure that small operators don’t have to sue local governments to be treated fairly by them. Until that happens, I hope The Blue Line’s lawsuit helps establish a red line against unequal treatment and cronyism that local policymakers will be more hesitant to cross in the future.

The post Kansas City’s Dubious COVID Orders Prompt Lawsuit appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

These additional streetcars will be added to the current fleet of four that travels the two-mile loop from Union Station to the River Market. While the fleet currently has four streetcars, only three are usually in use; the remaining streetcar is brought out only during busy occasions. The two streetcars that were just ordered would increase the normal number in use from three to four.

Mike Hurd, the marketing director for the Downtown Council of Kansas City, explained the purchase:

We have so many times of the year that we have big events going and the current rotation of streetcars really is not enough to handle the demand. So being able to add streetcars and still being able to keep the service free is just fantastic.

Hurd’s comments need a correction. While the streetcar may not charge a fee to riders, it is not a free service—it is paid for by taxpayers. Instead of receiving funds from a small user fee, the Kansas City streetcar is funded by special taxing in an area called a transportation development district (TDD). Researchers at the Show-Me Institute have written frequently about these districts, and previously explained how a TDD is created.

The taxing rates within this TDD are not going up to pay for these new streetcars. Instead, the official position is that the KC Streetcar Authority will be using existing funds saved  from previously received TDD income. This raises a question: If the Authority is able to save more than $10 million dollars from this TDD, doesn’t that indicate that the district tax rate is higher than needed to fund normal operations?

Additionally, no data has been released to confirm wait times will be significantly reduced by adding two new streetcars to the fleet. If the goal is to add an extra streetcar to the daily rotation and hold two back for special events, why not test the idea by running the current fleet of four streetcars on a daily basis and measuring the results? It appears Kansas City officials are touting an untested solution to a potentially nonexistent problem, and using taxpayer dollars to bring it to life.

If there really are $10 million dollars in excess funds, maybe the Streetcar Authority should lower the tax rates in the TDD. Instead, residents are being asked to pay for expensive additions to an already expensive scheme. Is that really a good idea?

The post Should Taxpayers Pay $10 Million To Reduce Streetcar Waiting Times? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Power & Light District plan was put together by City Manager Wayne Cauthen, and it was done largely out of the sight of the public. It was too late to make changes when the subsequent city manager, Troy Schulte, told us that in order for the Power & Light District to be self-sustaining, as voters were promised, “You needed Plaza-level holiday-level sales every day of the year.”

Seeking to avoid that same mistake, the 2010 convention hotel effort received lots of scrutiny, including reports from consultants and financiers. Bill Lucas, then president of the city’s hotel steering committee, said, “We’d about have to double our convention bookings” to make the hotel feasible. The project did not go forward because people were skeptical we’d make the goal.

This time the city is rushing a vote on the project to meet an arbitrary political deadline. There are no reports from consultants; no reports from financiers. One councilmember even complained about the short time available to make a decision.

While no one is saying how much convention business will have to increase to repay the investment, consider the impact of TIF giveaways to developers:

• Visitor money spent in the convention hotel itself won’t help us, as we’re giving all the taxes generated from those sales to the developers through Tax Increment Financing (TIF).
• If convention visitors wander to the Power & Light District for dinner and drinks, they’ll pay a high tax rate, but the city is already giving that tax money to Cordish through their TIF. The city won’t see much from it.
• If visitors head north to the River Market, the same will apply—we’re giving at least half of the tax revenue there to the developers.
• Maybe they’ll ride the streetcar. The streetcar will be free, so we won’t see any tourism dollars there (although it appears visitors who stay at the convention hotel will be paying 1 percent to the streetcar Transportation Development District).
• Maybe visitors will go to Country Club Plaza. That will be great, but half of the tax revenue generated from their purchases will go to the developers named in the Plaza TIF.

Therein lies the problem with Kansas City’s frequent use of TIF; we’re hollowing out our tax base. We claim that these developments will help the city, but in order to get the developments, we give away the tax revenue. Kansas City will likely need to more than double our convention bookings to make this financially sound, but no one is saying. This is no way to run a city.

The post How Will the Convention Hotel Help Taxpayers? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In the essay we examined Tax Increment Financing (TIF) project data provided by Jackson County and census data on household income. We found that in Kansas City the majority of taxpayer subsidies go to parts of town that are relatively wealthy and economically vibrant, rather than to the poor and economically depressed areas for which TIF was ostensibly designed.

Mike Mahoney of KMBC filed a story on our report. In it he interviewed Councilwoman Cindy Circo, who offered:

But it is the private development that drives the actual project itself. The city doesn’t go through the TIF process itself and be the developer.

This is an odd statement because Burns & McDonnell, and every other company that seeks a TIF subsidy, argues that the project could not go forward without public investment. So while Circo may be correct that the city does not choose the individual projects that apply for TIF, the TIF Commission and the city have demonstrated time and again that they aren’t really vetting applications, which has created an “anything goes” environment. One need only study the Citadel project to know that this is true.

If the city’s appointees on the TIF Commission were better at approving only legitimately blighted properties—those that truly require public investment—public subsidies might more often be used in the parts of town that really needed it. Instead, the subsidies flow to well-connected business leaders and their development lawyers, and public dollars unnecessarily go to projects such as Country Club Plaza and River Market.

The post Urban Neglect: Kansas City and TIF appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Jackson County and Union Pacific came to an understanding on purchasing the 15.5-mile Rock Island Corridor and two smaller spurs between Kansas City and Lee’s Summit for $59.9 million earlier this year. With the $10 million federal grant, the county residents will still need to fund a $50 million purchase.

But as the map above demonstrates, those purchases still leave the county well short of functioning commuter rail lines, without additional right-of-way or agreements with freight rail companies.

It is not simply a matter of purchasing track. The city has an ongoing dispute with freight companies over how commuter trains will arrive in downtown Kansas City. Regional planners are pushing for a connection with the streetcar at River Market, but Kansas City Southern Rail (KCSR) opposes this idea because it would jeopardize operations at Rock Creek Junction. KCSR suggests a connection at Union Station, but that could raise construction costs to $1.5 billion.

Using freight rail lines to get commuter rail into downtown Kansas City is no small problem, as the city is the country’s second largest freight rail hub, and rail lines downtown are already congested. Aside from providing a source of employment, having such a large freight rail hub has positive benefits for Kansas City’s manufacturing competitiveness. It would not be economically sound for the county to jeopardize freight efficiency to heavily subsidize the commutes of fewer than 4,000 residents.

While the county does not know how it will connect commuter rail to the city center, it is clear how it will pay for it: higher taxes. The county already has a plan to implement a county-wide 1 cent sales tax. But sales taxes are already very high in Kansas City. With the city still not giving up on a more expansive streetcar network, also to be funded with sales taxes, the increased tax burden may harm the city’s competitiveness. A yes vote is certainly not guaranteed.

The county does not yet have a plan for a functioning commuter rail system, and implementation depends on a tax that voters have not yet accepted. County officials should recall this before spending $50 million on right-of-way. They should also consider that Saint Louis is implementing Bus Rapid Transit, which can easily handle 4,000 commuters a day, for under $40 million. As for Kansas City residents, they should ask why city planners waste millions of dollars planning rail plan after rail plan without the approval, or even in the face of explicit disapproval, of voters.

The post Another Push for Rail Transit in Kansas City appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

• Price tag: Streetcar lines are expensive; most cost more than $50 million per mile. With an additional $50 million for a dedicated streetcar bridge across the Missouri River, the Northern line would be far more expensive per mile than the starter line in downtown Kansas City. To make matters worse, federal dollars might be difficult to come by, because, as the Star reports:

. . . funding depends in part on the economic development potential of the project. There’s no way to have economic development activity, consultants admitted, on a bridge that would have to span 1.7 miles of existing heavy railroad lines, the river itself and other unusable land to get to North Kansas City.

Of course, a much cheaper option is to run the line across the Heart of America Bridge. But this route has significant congestion from cars, trucks, bicycles, and buses. Which brings us to:

• Public transit options already exist for the route. Three bus lines (38, 133, 142) already connect the River Market with North Kansas City, two along almost the exact route of the proposed streetcar. If those bus routes do not adequately serve the area, Kansas City could increase bus service for a fraction of the cost of the streetcar.

All streetcar lines are expensive and redundant, but the proposed northern extension is especially wasteful. Opponents and friends of the streetcar alike should be able to agree that this is not the best use of city resources.

The post Kansas City Streetcar Northern Extension: The Bus With Rails Also Wants Its Own Bridge appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

So, “Merry Christmas,” shop owners. You will be paying for a giant boondoggle of a toy train for the foreseeable future.

Downtown Kansas City voters gave an “all aboard” OK to streetcars in election results announced Wednesday.

Voters approved, 351 to 198, a 1-cent sales tax increase, and 344 to 206 property tax increases to help pay for a $100 million, two-mile streetcar system. It will run from River Market to Union Station, primarily on Main Street.

The tax increases, authorized for 25 years, will apply only within the defined boundaries of a downtown streetcar district. That covers roughly River Market, the Central Business District, the Crossroads and Crown Center.

Show-Me Institute Chairman Crosby Kemper was interviewed on Fox 4 last week, and his concerns about the manner of the vote and the potential for cost overruns are very much warranted here.

The outcome of the vote is an unfortunate, but expected, result. Regardless, there is reason to believe this story is not over quite yet. Stay tuned.

The post As Expected, Kansas City’s Mail-In Streetcar Vote Wins appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

What could go wrong?

Councilman Russ Johnson has filed a resolution that would direct City Manager Troy Schulte to apply for a Federal Transit Administration grant to study extending the proposed streetcar line to the Country Club Plaza and University of Missouri-Kansas City area.

The current proposal has the line running a 2.2-mile route from River Market to Crown Center. The second leg would add a little more than three miles.

City officials apparently feel they need to go straight to ludicrous speed with this crazy train proposal, but basically all of the same objections apply to the new plan as the old. Kansas City’s streetcar plan attempts to satisfy a market demand for transit that does not exist along the proposed route and will cost at least — and now, potentially far more than — $100 million to get off the ground. In addition, despite city promises, the plan will make the city less competitive, not more competitive, with a spike in local taxes.

Is this really what Kansas City needs to be investing in right now? The Kansas City Star‘s Yael Abouhalkah recently noted that Kansas City has the second-worst debt service burden among the largest cities in the region and one of the highest tax burdens. Why would the city aggravate concerns that are already making it less competitive, and why on Earth would they double down on such a plan?

The post Double Trouble: Kansas City Considers Extending Trolley Line To Plaza appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Sure, the article conceded, trolleys had been falling out of favor
with the public for years, but “[n]ow gas prices, air pollutants and
spiffy promotional campaigns are making people more aware of the
trolley as mass transit.” One trolley company even said that at least
10 cities were “studying or planning or requesting funding for new
light rail vehicles.” On that list: Kansas City.

Sounds like trolleys are the fresh, happening thing these days when
it comes to municipal development, except for one important thing:
The article quoted here is from 1975. As long-time residents can tell
you, Kansas City does not have a streetcar today, and it’s hard to
argue that streetcars made a substantive “comeback” in the 1970s,
or since.

But will Kansas City soon bring streetcars back to its Main Street?

Maybe, if the city has its way. Last month, the Parking and
Transportation Commission and the Kansas City Council approved
a plan to install $100 million worth of trolley lines following a 2-
mile route running from the River Market to Crown Center.

That’s $50 million per mile; a ludicrous expense, and that’s in the
context of a city that has seen its share of ridiculous rail proposals
over the years.

Indeed, the idea of bringing rail lines in one form or another has
been kicked around exhaustively for the last two decades, and there
are, in fact, two competing passenger rail proposals in Kansas City:
the Main Street trolley and, no joke, yet another $1 billion-plus rail
project that perpetual rail proponent Clay Chastain has proposed.

But even Chastain, the name and face behind KC rail for years, won’t
rally behind a trolley project.

“You’re not going to take a streetcar to the airport,” Chastain told The
Kansas City Star. “This is not the major response we need to build a
world-class transit system.”

When Clay Chastain says your project is impractical, it just might be
impractical.

Missing in all of the streetcar talk is any substantive discussion of why
these projects are necessary, or even desirable, especially in today’s
economic circumstances. Kansas City and other cities removed their
trolley lines decades ago in no small part because trolleys were
impractical for their times, and the impracticality problems of trolleys
remain to this day. The Parking and Transportation Commission’s own
report puts the expense of trolleys at five times what a comparable bus
costs, and that’s assuming there are no cost overruns in the trolley line’s
construction.

But let’s break this municipal issue down to its most salient and important
question: Is a trolley project really the best use of already-depleted
taxpayer dollars? The money Kansas City would spend on these projects
couldn’t be spent on other pressing municipal matters. What would the
city forgo if it rebuilds rail lines that were torn out long ago?

In this economy, Kansas City needs… trolleys?

Really?

Patrick Ishmael is a policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute, which
promotes market solutions for Missouri Public Policy.

The post A Streetcar Too Far: Vanity Rail Lines Are a Waste of Kansas City Tax Dollars appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

On Tuesday, a key Kansas City transit group unanimously endorsed a plan that would put the downtown route primarily down Main, not Grand Boulevard.

The city’s Parking and Transportation Commission approved a consultants’ recommendation, which favored streetcars over rapid buses on a two-mile route from the River Market to Crown Center.

“A Main Street streetcar is the superior alternative,” project manager Charlie Hales, with HDR Engineering, told the commission.

This calls for a Kansas City trolley soundtrack. Hit it, Johnny!

For those unfamiliar with Kansas City’s politics, the idea of bringing rail lines in one form or another has been kicked around exhaustively for the last two decades, to the point where currently there are actually two competing passenger rail proposals: the Main Street trolley and, no joke, a $1 billion-plus rail project that perpetual rail proponent Clay Chastain has put forth. While the prospects of Chastain’s proposal (again) look bleak, supporters of the trolley project are pumping theirs up at a fraction of that price — a cool $100 million.

But even Chastain, of billion dollar rail fame, won’t rally behind a trolley project:

One outspoken opponent [of the trolley project] is Clay Chastain, who has mounted numerous unsuccessful attempts to bring light rail to Kansas City. Chastain has once again gathered sufficient signatures to place a $1.4 billion light rail system before voters next year, but the City Council has not yet approved it for an election.

“You’re not going to take a streetcar to the airport,” Chastain said Tuesday when told about the commission’s recommendation. “This is not the major response we need to build a world-class transit system.”

When Clay Chastain says your project is impractical, that’s saying something.

Of course, Kansas City’s not the only major metropolitan area in Missouri that might put hundreds of millions of quarters on municipal rails. St. Louis is putting together a trolley project that would run from Forest Park to the Delmar Loop — locations that Metrolink already serves, and within walking distance of the #1 Metro bus.

To give you an idea of the sort of distance we’re talking about here:

View Larger Map

The estimated cost for the roughly 2-mile line? About $50 million.

Are these projects really the best use of taxpayer dollars? At least one form of public transit already serves both areas, and in the case of St. Louis’ proposed line, there are two. The money the respective cities would spend on these projects couldn’t be spent on other pressing municipal matters. What would the cities forgo by rebuilding rail lines that were torn out long ago?

In this economy, Kansas City and St. Louis need…trolleys? Really?

The post Nothing Says ‘Progress’ Like a Vanity Trolley Project appeared first on Show-Me Institute.