They're getting roasted for it, and deservedly so. But today, the KC Star launched a piece promoting its own Light Rail plan. People will criticize that the Star should report the news, not create it. I tend to agree. I also get a chuckle at how the Star has presented the plan as being this great line of thinking when honestly, it's pretty much the line that is fairly universally agreed upon throughout the city. Down Burlington, Across the Heart of America Bridge, past the River Market on Grand to the Sprint Center (close to City Hall), then cutting over to Main and going down Main past Union Station, Crown Center, near Westport, to the Plaza. The only "new" thing is that the Star is actually proposing an East/West line connector running from Prospect down Linwood and connecting with the North/South line there.
While the Star will get roasted for making the news, or for their lack of creativity with the plan, the reality is that most of what they propose makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. It's the only plan that I've seen that adequately hits the central business corridor (essential if we're ever to get exapansion lines from the suburbs that connect in to the River Market and Union Station) and provides service for those on the East Side that tend to need public transit the most. And, it will be so flippin' convenient for me personally I can hardly stand it. I'll sell my car. Seriously.
But what's even more amazing to me is that the Star can put together a proposal in about 1/10th the time the city can spend actually talking about it and doing virtually nothing. That's pretty sad. So if the city can make their own news outside of having 6 small-community politicians say "we support this", I have no problem with the Star creating their own route. At least they're attempting to do something.
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