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Contest winner offers a detour
LIGHT RAIL | Voters had OK’d a Broadway course.
Kansas City Star
May 25, 2007
Kevin Collison
"We should be smart and should decide, understand and plan for development that will come with that and pay for it, in part, with a stronger tax base."
Steve McDowell, a partner at BNIM Architects
A light-rail route aligned with Main Street would provide more economic development potential and cost less to build than the course approved by voters last fall.
Those conclusions came from the winning entry in a transit-oriented development competition sponsored by the Kansas City Design Center, a nonprofit group that promotes good design and planning. The entry from BNIM Architects, which is assisting Houston with its next light-rail line, was chosen from among five participating teams.
"The cost of transit is huge," said Steve McDowell, a partner at BNIM. "To justify it, it needs to be used as an economic generator."
BNIM recommended an alignment using Main Street and Grand Boulevard from the Country Club Plaza to Harlem, a neighborhood on the north bank of the Missouri River. It would be one mile shorter than a Broadway route and offer six miles of street frontage available for potential development, versus 4.9 miles for Broadway.
The concept may provide more ammunition to critics of the light-rail plan prepared by Clay Chastain and approved last November. That route would follow a Broadway alignment through midtown, traverse Penn Valley Park, then wind through downtown before crossing the river and landing near the Harlem location suggested by BNIM.
Daniel Serda, the director of the Design Center and one of the jurors of the competition, said the results would be forwarded to the Kansas City Council, which is struggling with how to implement the costly light-rail plan that voters approved.
"The overall goal of the competition was to focus on the potential development benefits of light rail," Serda said. "What are the ways a light-rail system will benefit the city by providing infill development and reinvigorating the core?"
Councilman Ed Ford, who also served as a juror in the first round of transit development competition, said he would like to have BNIM present its findings to the council's Infrastructure and Transportation Committee, of which he is chairman.
"We're studying the whole light-rail issue, and one of the allures is the potential for economic development along the corridor," he said.
Why a Main-Grand route would both be shorter and offer more land for redevelopment is a factor of differing land-use patterns. The Main-Grand concept would pass more private, developable property, while the Broadway route would have more institutional and parkland bordering it.
Also, the Main-Grand route would follow a relatively straight course and avoid some of the steep grades and turns of the Broadway alignment.
Among the benefits of the suggested Main-Grand route, according to the BNIM proposal, would be closer proximity to major employment centers and a larger population base to draw from within a one-quarter mile on each side.
The major destinations a Broadway route would serve better are Penn Valley Community College and Union Station.
"The Main Street alignment offers more social and economic equity," McDowell said.
The BNIM plan recommended stations at the Country Club Plaza, American Century/St. Luke's Hospital, Armour Boulevard and Main Street, Linwood Boulevard and Main, Crown Center, 22nd Street and Grand Boulevard near Union Station, 18th Street and Grand, Interstate 670 and the Sprint Center arena, 10th Street and Grand, the City Market and Harlem.
The proposal also calls for a streetcar circulator route around the central business district.
In addition to having more economic development potential, McDowell said, the Main-Grand alignment would have fewer political obstacles. MainCor, the property owner group in midtown along Main Street, has endorsed a light-rail route, while the Broadway-Westport Association is on record opposing the Broadway alignment.
McDowell said having the route go to Harlem also would be a springboard for a future extension toward Kansas City International Airport.
Chastain said the results of the competition were unpersuasive, saying economic development is only one factor to consider in building a light-rail system.
"You also want your system to connect to as many major destinations as possible, which is more possible with Broadway than Main-Grand," he said. "I looked at the design in a multidimensional way -- economic, environmental, the image of the city -- and also how it would integrate with a future rail commuter system."
Chastain noted that the Main-Grand alignment would not directly serve Union Station or the convention center district, something that he said would be crucial for a route that ultimately would lead to KCI.
Economic development, however, is one of the major paybacks for the public investment in transit, according to Christopher Sullivan, vice chairman of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
Sullivan, who also serves on the Arlington County Board, was involved in deciding the route for the Washington, D.C., subway through his community.
"These things are expensive," Sullivan said. "Your land use can wind up being a bigger determinant on what's going on with your transit system than anything else. ... It'll have a big impact on how heavy ridership is and how much benefit you'll get from your investments."
McDowell agreed.
"Most of it will be paid for by the public," he said. "We should be smart and should decide, understand and plan for development that will come with that and pay for it, in part, with a stronger tax base."
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