That certainly is the number Fox4KC reported. And that number does come from the Streetcar Authority itself.

At over $100 million per mile, Kansas City may have just built the most expensive streetcar system in the country. A quick search online seems to support this (see table below). While this places the KC streetcar extension as the most expensive of 2025, we will only hold that title for a short while. California’s Orange Country streetcar—dubbed the Trolley to Nowhere by our friends at the California Policy Center)—will blow past our cost-per-mile when it opens in 2026.

Randal O’Toole, who authored a Show-Me Institute policy study on various streetcar proposals in Kansas City, told me “the average for streetcars is about $91 million a mile.” Although he added, “Seattle wants to connect two streetcar lines together at a cost of $220 million a mile.” So maybe Orange County’s record will itself be short-lived.

Recall that the streetcar system has done nothing to drive up assessed market value of the properties along the route above that of the county as a whole. It has had no measurable economic impact—despite the continuing and unsubstantiated claims made by streetcar supporters.

At best, we in Kansas City can—for a short while—lay claim to the most expensive system in the country. Yay!

The post “It cost what?” —KC Streetcar Announces Opening of New Extension appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A recent article in The Beacon highlighted “Historic renovations, new buildings and empty lots. Twelve projects to watch along the streetcar extension.” These projects may well be real, and perhaps even partially spurred by the streetcar—though that’s a bold assumption. (Consider, for example, the claim years ago that a company moved to be nearer to the streetcar, only to find out the claim was  specious.)  But more to the point, the story misses a crucial journalistic opportunity: comparison.

What if development along the streetcar line is proceeding at the same rate as development elsewhere in the county? Wouldn’t that be a critical piece of context for readers? Unfortunately, the article doesn’t address it.

The piece features an enthusiastic architect praising the streetcar and predicting continued growth—but offers little else in the way of evidence. There are no supporting data or comparative figures, just optimism.

Yet when we look at property value increases within the streetcar development district, the growth mirrors that of the broader county. If the streetcar were truly driving development, we’d expect the district to outperform. But so far, it hasn’t.

In fact, the full picture is more sobering. The city has layered on economic development incentives—tax abatements and similar tools—specifically to attract investment along the line. Still, there’s little sign they’re making a difference.

So, as more coverage emerges touting the streetcar’s economic magic, it’s worth pausing to ask a foundational economic question: “Compared to what?” That kind of framing—rooted in evidence, not enthusiasm—might offer readers a more accurate view of what’s really happening.

The post Don’t Believe the (Streetcar) Hype appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Meanwhile, the KC Streetcar Authority has broken ground on a 351 million-dollar expansion, financed by $171 million in federal funds, with the rest coming from a new transportation development district (TDD). This special taxing district will levy a 1% sales tax on areas around Main Street, generating millions in revenue to maintain the streetcar’s “free” admission status.

As Show-Me Institute analysts have argued in the past, the KC Streetcar has failed to generate economic growth and raise property values and does not improve Kansas City’s transit system as a whole. Throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at expanding the streetcar not only continues to grow a poor transit system but also neglects the more valuable bus system. Between 2016 and 2020, buses were the primary form of transportation for about 8,500 commuters in the Kansas City metro area. In contrast, there were only about 250 commuters in the entire metro area who got to work using the streetcar. In addition, the KCATA has an annual operating budget of $57.6 million, which is only about a fifth of what is being spent to expand the streetcar.

Kansas City’s MAX bus system is supposed to be a form of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), but with buses only coming every half hour on two of the three MAX routes, it fails in this respect. These routes need more frequent service, which means more buses and more drivers. Instead of continuing to pour money into an overpriced, ineffective streetcar system, Kansas City should consider diverting funds to its buses, which could be improved at only a fraction of the cost of current streetcar spending.

Politicians like grandiose plans, shiny new objects, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, and spending exorbitant amounts of other people’s money. What their constituents need is a bus system that runs effectively so that they can schedule their day properly. Politicians seek the former at the expense of the latter, and it ends up hurting the very people they most often claim to be helping.

The post As Kansas City’s Streetcar Expands, Its Buses Suffer appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Goldman Sachs predicts the United States gross domestic product (GDP) will shrink by a quarter. Thousands of people in the Kansas City region are losing their jobs, and the mayor just issued a shelter-in-place order. City revenue is about to plummet. We can safely say that revenues from the earnings tax and sales taxes will decline significantly.

Who knows what sort of bailout will be available to cities, if any. But this is not a time to be funding a film office whose function is to subsidize the likes of Netflix. Kansas City has been a high tax city for years. And not satisfied with spending those revenues, we have continued to increase our public debt. This may be a time of reckoning.

A city council that convenes online and votes virtually out of concern for a global pandemic must demonstrate that it truly understands the difference between basic, necessary services and those things that are merely nice to have. Is Visit KC, the city’s convention and visitors bureau, necessary in the next few months? Is the streetcar? Is the Economic Development Corporation (EDCKC) a vital need in the next quarter? The city council should act as they have asked Kansas City residents to act, supporting only “essential services.” Everything else, for now, needs to be set aside.

The post The Kansas City Budget Amid Coronavirus appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

One part of the proposed plan was to allow riders to use Metro passes to pay for Trolley rides. The plan also would have used the Loop Trolley Transportation Development District (LTTDD) revenue to develop (page 3) a park-and-ride pass program to encourage—or potentially force—Loop business employees to park at a distance and take the trolley to work. If forcing people to park in inconvenient locations is the best way to get people to ride the trolley, that should tell you all you need to know about actual demand for the trolley.

Since this new plan received no support, it will not be sent to the Metro board of directors. Further, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA)—the source of the $34 million federal dollars to construct the trolley—has indicated it may sue the trolley’s tax district for $25 million. If the FTA does file suit, several  entities that benefited from the federal money, such as St. Louis City and County, the LTTDD, and University City, could be on the hook for repayment.

The threatened lawsuit combined with the trolley closing has Metro concerned about future transportation grants being jeopardized. However, sinking millions of dollars more into the trolley is a poor way to try and save face. Bad projects should be allowed to end to make way for better ones, not kept alongside them.

St. Louis County has reiterated that no additional county funds will be spent on the trolley. The question of what to do will now be passed to the LTTDD. The LTTDD board members that have commented indicated they did not know what would come next, while the mayor of the City of St. Louis would like Bi-State to reconsider. If there is a market-based solution to keep the trolley running, let’s hear it. Until then, no more taxpayer money should be spent.

The post Beating A Dead Trolley appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As some readers will be aware of by now, the 8^th wonder of the world, the Delmar Loop Trolley, is in a financial pickle. The head of the company said that it needs $200,000 by next month to continue operations through the year, and $500,000 more to operate in 2020. One could call this a shocking policy failure, but I think many of us saw this coming. Whether it’s putting together or working within a reasonable budget, finishing a project on time or with appropriate permitting, or coming even remotely close to meeting ridership projections, the trolley leadership has proven time and time again that it cannot be trusted by policymakers or taxpayers.

(You should know that when your plan to boost ridership is to have stand-up comedians ride the rails, your project is absurd.)

But what I do find shocking this time around is the total lack of accountability exhibited by trolley leadership. They claim the trolley’s failure should be chalked up to delays in getting additional trolley cars on the tracks. So, the firm renovating the trolley cars is responsible for the delays, and thus responsible for the trolley’s laughable performance.

But this finger-pointing is all too easy to see through. First, the firm renovating the cars is accountable to the trolley company, its customer, and so, the trolley company should be compensated for the delayed product delivery. If the trolley company cannot be compensated by a contracted vendor for its failure to deliver, then the trolley company simply entered a bad agreement.

Second, it seems there are a number of other and far more reasonable explanations for the trolley’s failure. For one, the project was delayed for years and developed a sort of toxicity, and so would-be riders just gave up on ever riding. When you fail to deliver half a dozen times, people tend to just give up on you. Another explanation is that the trolley just doesn’t provide a valuable service, and so people just don’t ride it. Who wants to pay to sit on a glorified bus that takes you down the loop slower than the pace of an average pedestrian? And how many people do you honestly think are going to drive to the loop just to pay to take the trolley to the history museum? I’ll let you in on a little secret: not very many! (I am in the loop every day, and the most common number of riders I see is zero.)    

But what about the $200–300 million in development the trolley has apparently spurred? Doesn’t that make the project worthwhile? Well, no. For one, most if not all of the recent development around the trolley has been subsidized. Who can tell if it was the trolley or the subsidies that spurred the development? Two, the loop is hot real estate, and so I think the strong market, rather than the presence of a needless novelty, is what spurred development. Three, the only reason for thinking the trolley spurred this development is that it occurred after the trolley was in place. But temporal succession is not identical to causation. Moreover, there is little evidence in general to suggest that vintage streetcars or streetcars in general spur investment.

So what should policymakers do at this point? Well, they needn’t rip up the tracks and say goodbye to the trolley forever. Here is a modest proposal: Don’t bail out the trolley company again. Force its leadership to find the funding on its own. In the meantime, shut the trolley down if need be. The more the trolley company is responsible for itself, the better it will be. And, let’s be honest; it won’t be leaving many riders stranded. 

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One obstacle would have been difficult to predict. A two-car accident along the trolley’s route escalated into a shooting, and in the ensuing investigation police tape blocked the trolley’s path.

The other, longer-term problem involves not police tape but red tape, and should have been recognized and addressed long ago. The 2.2-mile vintage trolley line, which is supposed to transport passengers to and from the Delmar Loop, is only taking them halfway because of a dispute between the Trolley company and University City. According to Gregory Rose, U City’s city manager, the trolley enterprise hasn’t met the conditions required for the permit needed to operate there. U City will be off-limits to the trolley until (1) a $300,000 insurance bond is provided for cleanup efforts if the Trolley fails; and (2) a potentially dangerous electric pole along the route is removed. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the company has been aware of these issues for years. Which raises the question: Why weren’t these problems addressed earlier?

Since its inception nearly a decade ago, the Trolley has been plagued by construction delays and rising costs. It may even be responsible for the closure of numerous business, some of which had been in the Delmar Loop for decades.

Perhaps worst of all is that even if everything had gone smoothly for the trolley, there is little evidence that streetcars spur economic development. Considering the time and money that have been spent, and the revenue lost to local businesses during the construction, we’re long past the point of wondering whether the trolley was a worthwhile investment. The only question now is whether policymakers in St. Louis can learn from their mistakes.

The post Have You Got a Permit for that Trolley? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

It’s gotten me thinking: Could this “Uber, but for scooters” thing catch on? And if it does, how would it fit into our short-term, or even long-term, public transit future?

For Kansas Citians and St. Louisans, whether scooters catch on is an important question in light of the rail plans that both cities have pursued in recent years and may yet continue to pursue. As we know, streetcar lines are fixed, stop often, and can be dramatically impacted by traffic. Scooters are much more tailored to the user’s needs, though heaven help you if it rains.

But that said, during my Nightcrawler-esque scooter-gathering pursuits it has been fascinating to see so many people using rental scooters zip past Kansas City’s streetcar as the publicly financed, free-to-ride trains trundle on their tracks, from stop to stop, at roughly the same speed. And, according to the Dallas News, it seems the scooters are catching on just about everywhere they’ve been introduced:

Only last week The Atlantic ran a piece about [micro-scooter inventor Wim] Ouboter that said scooters aren’t the future, but only because they were the present long ago. They might have been sold and marketed as kids’ toys—even winning, in 2001, the award for “best toy designed for outdoor play.” But as The Atlantic’s Sarah Holder just wrote, the scooters were always intended “to fundamentally change urban transportation.”

Until now Razor has ceded that transformative micromobile marketplace to Bird, which has 3,000 scooters in Dallas, and Lime, which replaced most of its green-and-yellow rental bikes with around 2,000 rental scooters, according to docs prepared for the briefing. Clearly [scooter manufacturer] Razor grew tired of missing out on the business it essentially created—especially now that Bird is up to $1 billion in funding, making it what CNBC recently called “the burgeoning industry’s first unicorn.”

Lime and Bird have already shown these things work. The companies gave the city stats that show rides span just more than a mile and take, on average, about 13 minutes. The companies say people are riding twice as far on the scooters as they did on the rental bikes—yet their rides are six minutes shorter. Nothing in those docs indicates that scooter riders are less sweaty. But I can attest, yes, you do tend to smell better after 13 minutes on a scooter than 19 minutes on a bike.

What the scooter companies will tell you is that they’re in the business of solving the “last mile” problem in urban areas—that is, replacing the walk from public transit to your home, with a scooter ride instead.

But I also wonder to what extent, at least in Kansas City, the scooter is not just replacing the last-mile walk, but also the first mile of public transit. Granted, the scooters aren’t free to use like the streetcar, but they meet a need that the streetcar doesn’t—transit flexibility over short distances. Keep in mind that in Dallas the average trip is about a mile, which makes the two-mile length (north to south) of the streetcar line in Kansas City particularly notable. And that’s to say nothing of the east-to-west flexibility that scooters provide that Kansas City’s streetcar would seem unlikely to ever satisfy.

Will private rental scooters, or something similar, end up replacing the publicly-financed streetcar? It’s a possibility that I think city leaders here in Missouri and elsewhere need to consider before starting or expanding their urban streetcar systems.

The post How Do Rental Scooters Fit into the Transit Paradigm? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Trolley officials “hope” their project will be up and running within the next month or two.

It feels as if I’ve written or said this more times than the project has actually been delayed, but: it’s hard to see the Loop Trolley as anything besides a policy disaster. Not only is there little evidence that the Trolley will accomplish all that its proponents promise, like increased transit-oriented development, but its leadership has rolled things out so poorly that it seems hard for the public to take the project seriously at all (see Exhibit A). It’s also hugely over-budget.

So, at this point, what do we do? How can we, or policymakers, try to make the current, regrettable situation any better? My suggestion is this: Spare us all the misery and simply admit you’ve got no clue when the Trolley will be up and running. Maybe you (Loop Trolley officials) have an idea of when it will be up and running, and maybe this time that idea is based on reliable information—who knows? Even so, the public has been toyed with so much that the best thing to do—the least damaging, that is—is to just say, “We don’t know when the Trolley will be up and running.”

As an academic and researcher, I’ve learned that sometimes (a lot of the time, actually) you need to admit that you just don’t know the answer to a question. Sometimes you can do far more damage by providing an answer that you’re unsure of than admitting you just don’t know the answer. Officials involved with the Loop Trolley project should, more than many others, understand this point.

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It was recently announced that the opening of the over-budget historic streetcar line will be delayed yet again. This is, by our estimates, at least the fifth time the project’s opening has been delayed. Besides these delays, other snags have caught the project up along the way too.

The trolley line, which will run between University City Hall and the Missouri History Museum on Delmar Blvd and DeBaliviere Ave, was originally slated to begin operations in mid-2016. Since then, it’s been bailed out by taxpayers and private firms, threatened by the Federal Transit Administration, and under such financial strain it had to reduce its planned operating hours. It’s become increasingly hard to see the project as anything besides a policy and infrastructure disaster.

Whether you ultimately think the trolley will be a welcome addition to the Loop or just an eyesore and a money pit, all parties can agree the process of getting it up and running has been slow, painful, and embarrassing. This just doesn’t seem like how good policy is rolled out.

St. Louis, University City, County, and federal taxpayers deserve far better.

The post (Yet) Another Chapter in the Loop Trolley Bungle appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

It is noteworthy that in the age of driverless cars, some want to look backward to the inflexible fixed-rail technology of the 19th century. In Kansas City, when we get icy weather, the streetcar system is shut down and replaced with buses. And when even a single streetcar is involved in an accident or breaks down, the whole system is shut down. Streetcars cannot reroute themselves; they cannot drive around an accident. As neighborhoods grow over time, fixed rail routes cannot shift as demand shifts. Streetcars are literally and figuratively stuck in a rut. And on top of this, streetcars cause traffic congestion because they are so large and slow moving. Streetcars also fail to remove cars from the road. Research shows that streetcars really just move people away from buses, not out of their cars.

Because streetcars are such an inefficient and expensive transit option, proponents instead point to the economic development they purportedly create. Every new development is met with satisfied nods as evidence of the streetcar’s success. The research around the country and our experience in Kansas City tell another story. It’s not the streetcar that drives development, but all the taxpayer money handed out to encourage construction along the route. Abatements, cash handouts, tax credits and tax increment finance subsidies litter the streetcar route here.

On top of the subsidies, there’s the price tag on the streetcar itself. The cost of a streetcar is many times the cost of simply adding a new bus route. It is almost humorous that Kansas City raised taxes to fund a large portion of the approximately $110 million cost for 2.2 miles of track, then lowered taxes for developers to entice them to invest along the route. Imagine what would have happened if the city had skipped the streetcar and instead lowered taxes for everyone!

Omahans should be aware that Kansas City voters have been rejecting streetcars for decades. Due to an odd artifact of Missouri law, small groups of citizens can create transportation development districts and tax themselves. As a result, fewer than 400 votes cast in the district committed all of Kansas City to supporting a $110 million project. In response, activists circulated a petition requiring a city-wide vote before the Council could spend any tax money on streetcars. The petition collected the necessary number of signatures, was verified, and was passed by a vote of the people in August. But our Council declared the petition unlawful and appropriated more funds to the streetcar anyway.

Before the Obama Administration, few if any federal funds were available for streetcars. Since then, however, the spigots have been flowing—and the result has been a boom in streetcar spending in cities across the country. In several cases the percentage of people who use transit in those very cities has actually dropped.

Streetcars do look fun, however. One pundit in Kansas City refers to ours as a party bus. It’s free to ride, looks sleek, and is something new on the street. But it doesn’t help the city grow or efficiently move people where they want to go. It requires a lot of money to build and operate and requires even more subsidies along the route to create the illusion of economic growth. In Kansas City, the few (if any) benefits of a streetcar have not been worth the significant cost. Omaha taxpayers should be wary.

The post A Streetcar Undesired appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The piece begins with the following claim:

The 11-story former Netherlands Hotel is slated to be redeveloped into 110 apartments, part of a Main Street development surge linked to the planned streetcar extension.

Linked? What does that mean? The article repeatedly asserts a causal link to the streetcar, even quoting Tom Gerend of the Kansas City Streetcar Authority as saying “the streetcar is an attractive catalyst for continued investment along the corridor.” Are developers buying up buildings along the streetcar route, investing their own money and contributing to the city and county tax rolls all because of the taxpayer funded streetcar? If so, that would be news!

It would be newsworthy because economic literature in the United States and around the world shows that it cannot be concluded that streetcars drive economic development. What actually happens here and elsewhere is that cities provide all sorts of taxpayer-funded subsidies along the route. What appears to be new economic activity is just redirected tax money.

In fact, the KCUR piece makes this very point:

Buland says Exact Partners already have purchased the six-story Monarch and expect to complete the purchase of the Netherlands this week.

The developer is seeking a 10-year, 75 percent property tax abatement from the city, and already has lined up historic tax credits to help finance the Netherland renovation.

While the developers may like the streetcar, how likely is it that they would be working on these buildings if there was no city tax abatement or state tax credit? In another story about the project in The Kansas City Business Journal, Buland says, “We look for challenging properties in that area that no one else wants to redevelop.” So much for a streetcar alone creating a clamor among developers!

The streetcar did not spur any redevelopment. The development at hand is due to lowered taxes. In short, Kansas City raised taxes to pay for the streetcar and then lowered taxes to spur development along the route. Imagine what would happen if we scrapped the streetcar and lowered taxes for everyone!

The post Lower Taxes, not Streetcars, Drive Development appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Bringing the palm of one’s hand to one’s face, as an expression of disbelief, shame, or exasperation.

It’s what I did when I read that the Delmar Loop Trolley, supposed Millennial-magnet and urban-revitalizer extraordinaire, is yet again over-budget and likely delayed. Joe Edwards, who’s leading the trolley effort, says he needs an additional half-million to cover signage and vehicle restoration costs, and to ensure the system can operate over “reasonable hours.” In other words, the Loop Trolley needs another bailout to help pay its regular bills—not to cover unexpected costs.

This request is not fake news, and unfortunately it shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Trolley has an expensive and protracted history. Sometimes past performance really is the best indicator of future results.

First, in 2014, bids for building the vintage streetcar line came in $11 million over-budget. A second round of bids came in $3 million lower, but that still put the project—originally estimated to cost $43 million—nearly 20% over-budget. County taxpayers coughed up the extra cash to bail the trolley out, after they were told cost-overruns would be paid by a special taxing district, the loop trolley transportation development district, which levies an extra sales tax for the project.

And then there were the delays.

Before construction even began, the Federal Transit Administration, which pledged to pay for most of the trolley’s capital costs, threatened to withdraw its financial support because of a lack of engineering and design progress. Then the University City council had to extend the terms of a special building permit six months so construction would be legal when it actually began. At that time, the line was slated to open in late 2016.

But then the public was told the line would open in spring of 2017. It didn’t. Trolley proponents later said the opening date would be sometime in summer of 2017. It wasn’t. Then they said the opening date would be in August. It no longer is. And then they said it would be sometime later in the fall of 2017. I wouldn’t be surprised if the trolley actually starts moving people sometime closer to 2018.

The Loop Trolley is a textbook example of government mismanagement. Proponents over-promised and under-delivered, and ultimately, taxpayers are on the hook. Unfortunately, the trolley’s foundering was entirely predictable. Projects like it are consistently over budget and often delayed for years. Perhaps policymakers will take this as a learning opportunity. It looks like the federal government may be doing just that.

The St. Louis Business Journal reports that:

Edwards also said he has been told by Federal Transit Administration Regional Administrator Mokhtee Ahmad that if the trolley is not completed in the immediate future and does not operate successfully for the first three years, future federal funds for other St. Louis-area projects could go to other cities. [emphasis mine]

Is the federal government really so displeased with the Loop Trolley that it is questioning whether regional leaders can competently manage infrastructure projects? On top of taxpayers not being able to ride the trolley they were promised, will they miss out on other, more meaningful projects?

The post Face-Palm: Loop Trolley Over-Budget, Likely Delayed, Again appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The piece details yet another downtown building getting historic tax credits and being let off the hook for property taxes. Taxpayers can be forgiven if they wonder whether the glass cube building completed in 1973 and pictured above is historic and worthy of subsidized preservation. But that is a matter for another time; this is about the streetcar.

Collison writes,

The $50 million redevelopment plan for the reflective glass-clad building known as the Flashcube received critical tax incentives to move forward today, the latest project on the downtown Kansas City streetcar line.

Streetcar supporters may decide to include this renovation in their shifting and often incorrect list of projects that can be credited to the streetcar. At best, they can claim that the streetcar got developers interested in seeking taxpayer subsidies. But the streetcar was neither necessary nor sufficient for the project. The available research does not support the claim that streetcars—in Kansas City or elsewhere—drive development. And Collison’s own story makes that point clear. The building sat vacant for a decade, and it wasn’t until taxpayer subsidies were offered that any renovation deal moved forward—in short, the public is investing in yet another downtown development deal that businesses wouldn’t touch on their own.

Regardless of the merits of the downtown development subsidies—and again, we discuss that elsewhere—this project is moving forward because of the subsidies, not the streetcar.

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The metropolitan area is served by a comprehensive freeway network and a good arterial street and boulevard network. Only two of the 50 largest U.S. urban areas have lower traffic volumes per freeway lane mile than Kansas City. This provides Kansas City with a considerable advantage in both personal and freight mobility.

Cox writes that according to Tom Toms Traffic Congestion Index, “Kansas City ranks as the least congested metropolitan area, overall, in the world among the 146 it ranks.” This is not because there are fewer people on the roads in Kansas City or because a larger percentage of people use transit. “Driving alone is by far the most important means of travel to work. In 2014, 82.6 percent of Kansas City commuters reached work driving alone,” writes Cox. Driving to work alone is not the sole dominion of wealthy workers, however:

Automobile usage is so pervasive that it is little different among low-income employees than among the overall work force. In Kansas City, only 3.0 percent of low income employees commute to work by transit. This is more than the share of the overall workers using transit, but still very small. Cars are much more important to low-income workers. This small difference is less than might be expected in light of the perception that low-income residents depend substantially on transit for their mobility. In 2013, 76 percent of low-income Kansas City workers drove alone to work, nearly as high as the approximately 83 percent of all workers who drove to work.

The next time you hear someone wax rhapsodically about the need for an expanded streetcar system in Kansas City so we can be like Denver and Portland—or because they think it will help poor people better get to work—direct them to Cox’s paper. Kansas City is not like those places—certainly not when it comes to density or traffic congestion.

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the investments she favors may more quietly reflect conservative tenets like heavy highway spending, disregard for energy efficiency, and the denial of funds to transit and pedestrian projects in densely populated areas.

This should not be surprising, especially for streetcar proponents. But it should be alarming for them. As my former colleague Joe Miller wrote in 2014,

What streetcar advocates really have to fear is not the defunding of urban transit, but the defunding of streetcars in favor of other forms of transit. Past administrations favored transit projects that reduced congestion or improved mobility, so streetcars received few federal dollars. The Obama administration’s desire to use transit projects to create “livable communities” has made federal streetcar funding possible.

Mind you, overall Federal transit funding may not change much. But as Slate pointed out, the Obama Administration was an outlier on how the funding was spent:

Obama’s first transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, for example, was a major proponent of diverting DOT spending away from highways (many of which are boondoggles, the least of which costs many times as much as the hated streetcars) to other transportation and infrastructure projects. He supervised the creation of the TIGER grant program, which injected billions in federal money into local, multimodal projects, and was reauthorized repeatedly by Congress.

Recall that in 2013, TIGER funding provided $20 million toward the streetcar project in Kansas City. And according to the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance (KCRTA), the proposed $227 million Main Street extension of the streetcar assumes up to $114 million in federal funding. Fourteen million of that is from designated regional funds (STP/CMAQ), which means other regional transportation projects would have to wait if streetcar expansion moves ahead. The remaining $100 million now may be pie-in-the-sky.

In July 2014, Mayor James campaigned for the first ill-fated streetcar extension line by saying, “We really have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here.” Considering the President-Elect’s Secretary choice, he may have been right. It remains to be seen if he and other streetcar supporters believed that rhetoric.

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Quote 1: “Trolleys are a proven catalyst for residential, commercial and recreational development in cities like Memphis, Little Rock, Tampa and Portland.”

Quote 2: “The evidence for the streetcar’s development effects is limited, controversial, and yet widely believed among many streetcar proponents.”

. . . Well?

If you guessed Quote 2, you’re right. It’s from a recent report by the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University. Quote 1 is from rail proponents on the Delmar Loop Trolleys’ website.

Despite the lack of empirical evidence, boosters of the Trolley—a 2.2-mile vintage streetcar line slated to begin service this spring—claim it will spur economic development. But as the authors of the Mineta report (and this one) explain, there is no solid link between streetcars and development.

And the development prospects look especially grim for the Loop Trolley.

Research shows that of all kinds of mass transit, ‘vintage’ or ‘heritage’ streetcar lines like the Loop Trolley are the least likely to generate development. That’s because of their low ridership and limited service. If the trolley doesn’t effectively serve as a transit amenity—for example, by getting people to work or school—it won’t attract economic activity. But the trolley is only projected to carry a paltry 800-1,200 passengers a day and won’t even start running until the lunch hour! To put that in perspective, a busy Metro bus route can carry anywhere from 5,000-9,000 passengers a day, and operates nearly 24 hours a day.

Trolley boosters might respond that the streetcar has already spurred development, including a new residential tower. But this response ignores the point driven home in the scientific literature: subsidies, relaxed zoning, and other perks do more of the spurring than the rail does. (In the case of the new East Delmar residential tower, the project received a 16-year tax abatement.) As a recent paper in the Journal of Public Transportation states, “The real explanation for Portland’s apparent redevelopment success is most likely a combination of these factors [namely, financial incentives and regulatory inducements], combined with a desirable location and a vibrant local real estate market” (p. 44).

The truth is, the Loop real estate market is doing just fine. Delmar is not blighted, and didn’t need a $51 million vanity streetcar to grow. And if our community wants to drive development east of Skinker, it will have the most success by lowering tax and regulatory burdens, not because it has a vintage trolley creeping by. 

The post The Unscientific Claims of Streetcar Boosters appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

• Ethics reform in the Missouri legislature
• Battles over education spending
• Pension risk for Missouri government employees
• The Kansas City Streetcar
• MetroLink expansion in Saint Louis
• Professional licensing

Click on the link below to read it all.

The post Show-Me Institute’s July 2016 Newsletter appeared first on Show-Me Institute.