Monday, January 22, 2007

Kansas City's LRT plan unconstitutional

Kansas City MO - Some details are coming out on the voter approved initiative to slap a light rail line down in Kansas City and it's not the rosy picture painted by the pro-rail crowd that pushed for the vote.

The Kansas City Star has two stories regarding this upcoming disaster: Story 1 - Story 2

Pro-rail activist Clay Chastain, who got the initiative placed on the ballot, obviously hasn't a clue what he's doing beside living the LRT lie. His initiative that voters approved is filled with problems ranging from the mundane to items that are completely unconstitutional.

In Chastain's zealousness to have a LRT rail line slapped down as fast as possible, he didn't do any homework to see what all was involved. He just pushed to get the initiative on the ballot and then went into spin mode to make it look great to the public so they would pass the initiative.

Chastain doesn't care that it will cripple the transit system, just as long as he gets his precious LRT line. It's the old pro-rail philosophy of "damn the costs, full speed ahead" that is driving him.

There is no method to pay for the LRT line in Chastain's initiative besides hoping the Feds will just magically pony up the money. Talk about wearing blinders. He literally ignored any potential problem in his initiative.

All Chastain has accomplished with his ill-conceived initiative is to saddle Kansas City with something they can't afford. This also sets a precedent that any whacked out plan can go through now with just the hope that maybe the Feds will fund it.

Clay, your an idiot. That initiative shouldn't have even been on the ballot based on how poorly the LRT plan was researched by you. I hope that Kansas City voters put another initiative up to vote your plan down on the next election. They are beginning to see they were hoodwinked by you and the pro-rail crowd that so desperately wants LRT and trolley lines slapped down anywhere and everywhere.

Radical rail activists like Clay Chastain are one of the big problems with public transit today. They push for expensive and unneeded items like LRT without any true plan to explain how it will be funded and lie to the public by painting a Utopian vision of how much better off they'll be if they'll just support this unneeded and expensive project. Once they get it rammed through, they just shrug their shoulders when reality sets in but still keep pushing for the project they know can't be afforded by the city or the transit system. They live in a utopia within their own mind and try to shove that utopia down everyone else's throat through conning the general public into believing something can be done when it really can't be.

Congrats Clay, you got the Lance. I may need to make a special award up for idiotic pro-rail activists and call it the Clay Chastain Award.

4 comments:

Kareem said...

KC is trying to keep up with St. Louis. Whatever St. Louis has, KC has to have too. KC has been sort of the also ran in Missouri, being one of the younger cities in the state. So when lightrail (and its associated problems) came to St. Louis, KC naturally wanted a piece of the action.

In their haste (St. Louis had been planing a lightrail system since the late 70s and early 80s), the came up with an ill-conceived plan and the rest is history.

Typical Missouri politics.

RDC said...

Kareem, the rail fiasco in KC is the result of an outsider that came in.

Clay Chastain isn't from Kansas City, MO. He's from Bedford, VA.

He's the typical radical pro-rail idiot that marches into a city, makes tons of promises to get the people to push for an LRT line but never has to deal with the consequenses of his selfish act.

http://blogs.kansascity.com/unfettered_letters/2007/01/lightrail_plan.html

Kareem said...

Fair point. I wasn't immediately aware he was from Virginia. That just makes the situation all the more ridiculous.

The "lance" is rightly deserved.

Anonymous said...

kareem, KC's actions will hopefully benefit St Louis by finally convincing state-level officials to help with funding for future expansion of rail systems.