Kim Cornelius
Ms. Albright
English 101
February 22, 2015
Light Rail in Kansas City There are many people in Kansas City who oppose a light rail for numerous reasons. The most prominent reason that most people oppose the light rail is because they do not want to have an increase in taxes. Others oppose it simply because they do not feel that a light rail is necessary. But when you go downtown to areas such as Power and Light you end up paying a high price to park and normally end up walking quite a ways to get to your destination. A light rail would eliminate the high price of parking and also have stops that are close to your destination. If we could come up with a plan to educate more people on the benefits of a light rail for Kansas City and also not have as big a tax increase as has been proposed in the past, I believe that more people would agree that a light rail would be beneficial to the Kansas City area and its economy. A light rail would be a wonderful asset to the Kansas City area as we are quickly increasing the amount of walkable urban development that we have in the area. The light rail would be a great way for people to choose to go from area to area and only have to find parking once for the entire day. Some of our walkable urban developments are Zona Rosa, Lenexa’s City Center, Leawood’s Park Place, The Crossroads, Crown Center, and Country Club Plaza (Leinberger). These urban areas are environment friendly as they tend to be more energy efficient and also emit less greenhouse gases (Leinberger). The light rail would be a great way to link all of these together along with other attractions in the area such as the Kauffman Center, H&R Block Headquarters, Sprint Center, Power and Light and the stadiums. One benefit of a light rail system is that you can save money on parking. In Saint Louis, Missouri there is a light rail called the Metrolink which charges a minimal fee to ride but you can park at the Metrolink station for free and it will take you as far as the airport, which saves money by not having to pay the high price of parking at the airport for the days that you are going to be out of town. For those people who are going to travel by Amtrak or Greyhound there is a Metrolink stop right outside the station that houses Greyhound and Amtrak. There are also lots of other tourist stops in the downtown area that all charge parking that you can ride the light rail to and not have to pay the price of parking. Another benefit is that if more people are riding the light rail system there will not be as much traffic congestion during rush hour which would result in safer travel and less traffic accidents. More benefits include saving money on gas for your vehicle and less wear and tear on your vehicle. Another huge benefit of a light rail would be less wear and tear on our roadways as there would be less people driving on the roads. The light rail would also help attract tourists to the area and boost our economy. There are lots of things to do in Kansas City that a lot of tourists would not know about normally. But with the light rail going past some of the things that would normally be overlooked the likelihood of tourist getting off at that stop and checking out the sights would be greater with the light rail. Right now most tourists hear about the different things to do by advertisements on billboards, television, radio, and of course word of mouth from people they talk to. One reason some people are against the light rail is that they feel it is too costly to build and maintain. But what we fail to think about is that it is also costly to construct and maintain roads and freeways (Star). With a light rail there would be less maintenance required on the roads and freeways. Which would allow the funds that we would use to maintain those roads and freeways to be used towards the light rail. Another reason people are against the idea of a light rail is because they fear that there will