KC COMMUTER
News on commute alternatives in Greater Kansas City
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JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2012
Car sharing comes to Kansas City
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Ford Focus and Toyota Prius rental cars now offered by Zipcar on UMKC campus |
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Rode the bus to work, but need to run an errand during the day? Live on campus and want access to a vehicle from time to time? Rent a Zipcar.
In January, Zipcar launched the metro’s first car-sharing service at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Rockhurst University, providing a pool of vehicles that members can reserve on an hourly or daily basis.
Students, faculty and staff of those universities, and the general public can book cars 24 hours a day through a computer or smartphone, pick them up on the UMKC campus, and drop them off at the same place.
Parking congestion is an ongoing issue for urban schools like UMKC and Rockhurst. University officials hope self-service Zipcars can help relieve parking demand on campus and in the surrounding neighborhoods by offering an alternative to the costs and hassles of owning a car. Officials are betting that many students will take advantage of that flexibility and leave their own cars at home, avoiding wasteful trips. Zipcar at UMKC is part of a broader alternative transportation program that includes bicycle sharing and city bus passes.
The first two Zipcars, a new Toyota Prius and Ford Focus, will be based on the north side of UMKC’s University Center on the Volker Campus. If the program is successful, more cars could be added to the fleet. UMKC would also like to add car sharing at its Hospital Hill Campus.
Zipcar’s business model is to start at the university level, where there is some density. If it catches on at the universities, the Boston-based company could expand to other locations in the metro, a concept supported by the city of Kansas City, Mo. The company claims that every Zipcar takes 15 to 20 personally owned vehicles off the road.
“The most significant thing about having Zipcar in town is that it helps move Kansas City more toward a place where you don’t have to own a vehicle to be able to get around,” said MARC Air Quality Program Manager Amanda Graor. “This complements the existing transit services to fill in gaps and allow for more flexibility.”
Unlike many conventional car-rental firms, Zipcar allows university students aged 18−20 to use the cars assigned to the schools. Members 21 and older can also reserve Zipcars in other cities.
Zipcar members pay an initial $25 application fee and an annual fee of $50. Every reservation includes a gas card, comprehensive insurance and up to 180 miles per day. Members receive magnetic swipe cards, which give them access to vehicles, and let them unlock and lock them. Hourly car-rental rates are from $7 on weekdays and $8 on weekends, and daily rates are from $66 on weekdays and $72 on weekends.
The Mid-America Regional Council helped UMKC navigate the Kansas City, Mo., regulatory framework and facilitate an amendment to the city’s daily car-rental fee structure to allow for hourly rentals.
For more information, contact Amanda Graor (MARC) or R. Kaye Johnston (UMKC).(back to top) (newsletter home)
Downtown streetcar project advances on Main Street
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Photo illustration of streetcar operating near City Market |
A plan to build a modern electric streetcar system in downtown Kansas City, Mo., is picking up speed. The region has studied rail service in the downtown area for years, but this is the first time there’s been both an agreed-upon route and early indications of community support.
The proposed route is a two-mile stretch of Main Street between River Market and Crown Center that was adopted last fall by the Kansas City Council after the Downtown Corridor Alternatives Analysis study looked at several alternatives. The route would intersect three major transit hubs: Grand Boulevard at 3rd Street, Main Street at 10th Street, and Main Street at Union Station.
The streetcar is intended to better connect downtown activity centers and promote economic development. It is consistent with the goals of Kansas City's Greater Downtown Area Plan and the Smart Moves vision for regional transit.
Streetcar project details — including vehicle mode, route and a financing plan — have been amended into the region’s long-range transportation plan, Transportation Outlook 2040. The city of Kansas City, Mo., is ready to move the downtown streetcar project into advanced conceptual engineering, recently authorizing a design contract with HDR Engineering, Inc.
City planners and civic leaders generally accept that any new system must be funded largely through new revenue in order to maintain existing levels of transit service in the area. In January, the city council also approved two resolutions that would let voters in a proposed transportation development district decide whether to make the district a quasi-governmental entity, and whether to pass a 1 percent sales tax increase and assess additional property taxes to help pay for much of the $100 million proposal. Federal funds would also be sought to pay for about a quarter of the project.
The target for opening the streetcar service is April 2015, depending on funding availability.
The downtown project is being coordinated with the Jackson County Commuter Corridor Alternatives Analysis that is evaluating commuter transit service options on the I-70 east and Rock Island corridors in Jackson County, Mo., as well as the U.S. Highway 71/Grandview corridor.
For more information, visit www.kcsmartmoves.org.
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Website upgrades make it easier to find someone to share the ride with
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Transportation costs are the second-largest expense for most households, and while commuters can't change the price of gas, they can control how much they drive. Many people may be surprised to find that with a little extra planning, alternatives like carpooling, riding the bus or bicycling can work for them — if only occasionally — and rack up significant savings.
Our RideShare Connection ride-matching website was upgraded in early January and now offers more features to commuters and employers in Greater Kansas City and St. Joseph, Mo.
Individual users now have the ability to:
- set more than one commute profile to accommodate varying daily schedules
- change suggested routes on one's ride-match map (generated by Google Maps)
- plan transit and bicycle trips through links to Google from one’s commute profile
- integrate Facebook and LinkedIn pages with their RideShare Connection profile
- look for ride matches for events, such as First Fridays (set up by request)
RideShare Connection offers an employer module, which allows companies to manage a free carpool-matching website with custom content for their employees. Subscribers can find ridesharing opportunities at the company or within the larger regional carpool-matching database. And the site's expanded reporting tools help companies track employees’ participation, as well as ridematching activity by employees and new registrations.
Want more information? Contact us at rideshare@marc.org or 816-842-RIDE (7433).
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Riding the bus keeps the miles off Dan's 13-year old truck
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Dan Raetzel |
On a recent morning when an accident turned I-35 into a parking lot, a lot of stressed commuters were stuck idling in their cars for 20 minutes or more while the wreck was cleared. Not Dan Raetzel. Instead, he managed to get in a little more snooze time on The JO bus.
Raetzel lives in Olathe and commutes to downtown Kansas City, Mo., to his job in human resources at UMB Bank. For about 10 years, he has chosen on most weekdays to leave his beloved 1999 Ford F-150 pickup at a park-and-ride lot and take The JO to work. Raetzel logs his commutes on RideShare Connection and, since June 2008, has saved more than 30,000 miles of driving. His 13-year-old truck has yet to hit the 100,000 mile mark.
Raetzel takes advantage of factors that enable him to ride the bus and save on his commute. First is the convenience of riding the bus: The park-and-ride lot is 1.5 miles from his house, and the bus drops him off right in front of his building downtown. Next is cost: His employer pays for all but $20 of his monthly bus pass.
“It would cost me a heck of a lot more a week to drive,” he says.
Over time, the regulars on Raetzel’s route have seen new riders come and go. It used to be that fluctuations in gas prices would result in new, short-term transit riders. Not anymore; new riders are getting on the bus even when gas prices go down, Raetzel says.
For those who are on the fence about riding the bus, Raetzel advises they first determine whether their schedule is compatible with the bus schedule. Next, they should realize that there are many benefits to riding on a bus instead of driving. For Raetzel one of them is having a solid half hour to catch up on reading during each leg of his commute. (Over the course of three years he was able to use this time to read the entire Bible.) Finally, Raetzel has a half-joking piece of advice for newbies: Save the large beverage for the office rather than the bus ride. There are no bathroom facilities on the bus.
Want to be featured in our commuter profile series? Contact Marge Gasnick at 816-842-RIDE (7433).
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Metro rider adds up benefits of riding the bus
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Screenshot of RideShare Connection |
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For Andy Giacoma, riding the bus is the right thing to do.
An underwriter at Commerce Bank, Giacoma has ridden Metro route 55-Rockhill to work every day for about a year and a half. He logs his commutes on RideShare Connection, and by doing so is able to track how many miles he has not driven and how much pollution has been prevented. To date, he has saved about 3,200 miles of driving.
Riding the bus makes sense for Giacoma. After moving to a house with a one-car garage, Giacoma and his wife decided to sell one of their vehicles, which made riding the bus even more desirable. His home is located near several transit routes that drop him off near his office downtown. His employer pays for all but $30 of his monthly bus pass.
Giacoma acknowledges that switching to the bus requires people to make adjustments.
“You give up some personal freedom, there’s no doubt about that,” he says. “But the rewards outweigh the costs.”
Those rewards go beyond the obvious cost savings. “You can’t really put a dollar sign on it,” he says. “You’re not wasting fuel and it’s more ecologically responsible. It also puts less cars on the road so there is less congestion.”
Want to be featured in our commuter profile series? Contact Marge Gasnick at 816-842-RIDE (7433).
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Commuter transit benefit slashed January 1, 2012
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When 2011 ended, so did a measure that raised the pre-tax commuter benefit to $230 a month, putting it on par with the parking benefit. On January 1, the federal transit benefit fell back to $125 per month and the parking benefit increased to $240 per month.
Commuter tax benefits are meant to assist both individual commuters and employers. For commuters, they are able to purchase either a transit pass or vanpool fare (up to $125) or a parking pass (up to $240) each month as a pre-tax deduction from their paycheck. Employers can contribute towards all or part of the cost of the passes. Employers who offer this benefit to employees can save on payroll taxes and federal income taxes.
Transit advocates have long called for parity between the parking and transit benefits. In 2009 the transit benefit was increased to match the parking benefit, but it was not included in the two-month payroll tax cut extension passed last year. The transit benefit reverted back to its pre-2009 rate on Jan. 1. A $20 monthly benefit for bicycle commuters remains in effect but cannot be combined with the transit benefit.
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Learn to teach bicycling skills to others
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Local bicyclists who would like to be certified to teach bicycling skills to others will have an opportunity to get training this spring.
In partnership with Family Bicycles and RevolveKC, the Mid-America Regional Council will host a League Certified Instructor (LCI) training seminar the weekend of April 27–29, 2012, at the MARC office in downtown Kansas City, Mo. The LCI credential enables instructors to teach the League of American Bicyclists' Smart Cycling series to adults and children. It is the first time since 2009 that the training has been held in Kansas City.
In order to take the course, participants must be members of the League of American Bicyclists and complete the League’s Traffic Skills 101 course. The cost of the LCI course is $200 and is non-refundable. Class size is limited.
Employers who want to offer bicycle education on-site might consider sponsoring an employee to take the course. And, organizations that apply or reapply for a Bicycle Friendly Business designation could include this in their application.
Those who are interested in the LCI seminar or Traffic Skills 101 should contact Theresa Van Ackeren at Family Bicycles or call 816-268-1757.