Jack Cashill Comes Out Against Mass Transit?? Say It Isn't So!

BREAKING NEWS TODAY!! (last week?)

None other than very Right Wing, conservative JACK CASHILL has come out SQUARELY AGAINST MASS TRANSIT here in the Kansas City area!

Shocking!

Imagine that!!

A middle-aged (senior?), very white, middle- to upper-class, again, Right Wing, conservative--Republican? Libertarian?---coming out against MASS TRANSIT!!

Naturally, I first read of this shocking, shocking development over at some local blog.

KANSAS CITY URBAN PLANNER FACT CHECK: CONSERVATIVE JACK CASHILL EXAMINES DENSITY & PUBLIC TRANSIT ROLE IN DEADLY CORONAVIRUS!!!

Thank goodness I checked that out! (Thanks for the heads up, Ton...)

You just can't get any more controversial or daring than that!

Be able to take light rail from, say, the airport to downtown? Or out in the city??

Have the city bisected by light rail with East/West and North/South routes??

This daring Right Winger is having nothing of it!

And Mr. Cashill so rightly makes a DIRECT CONNECTION between this MASS TRANSIT NONSENSE and the current CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC!!

We knew there was one, right??

So what if light rail is successful in St. Louis and Denver and, oh, I don't know, Chicago and New York and EVERY OTHER CITY it's in ACROSS THE ENTIRE WORLD!!

Next thing you know, people will want to---oh, I don't know--SAVE MONEY and SAVE TIME and have it be CONVENIENT and POLLUTE LESS??

I say again---GET AROUND THE ENTIRE METROPOLITAN AREA EASIER AND FASTER AND MORE CONVENIENT AND LESS EXPENSIVE AND POLLUTE LESS??

We'll have none of that!

We'll be gripping our steering wheels UNTIL WE DIE, right Jack??!!

Thank God someone, someone is taking on these tough, tough, controversial issues in this day and age and area!

God bless you, Jack Cashill!

Keep up that great, ground-breaking, courageous work, sir!!  We're right with you!!

Back here in the 1890s.

(I'm dyin' ovah heyah).

Links:

Mass Transit System - Advantages of Mass Transit System

Mass Transit and Smart Growth Save Time, $ and the Environment

Take Public Transportation - Save Money, Save The World

The Environmental Benefits of Riding Public Transit

Can We Please Stop Pretending Cars Are Greener Than Transit?

Cars, Mass Transit and the Efforts to Reduce Emissions

Look Who Was In Town Yesterday

So I ran to the grocery yesterday morning here in Brookside at the Price Chopper. I got what I needed quickly, came out and who was there?

None other than our own come and go Clay Chastain, in the flesh.

He seemed to be approaching (accosting?) people, yet one more time with one of his seemingly countless, endless petitions, no doubt for light rail in the city.

What is it about this guy? What does he have in for Kansas City? What is his goal? What's with the cross-country preoccupation?

I wish someone like Steve Kraske on KCUR or someone, somewhere would interview this guy and ask him what he and this is all about. I'd love to know. It's never ending.

And the heck of it is, I'm personally all for mass transit.

But what is it with his obsessive preoccupation with it all and this city?

Somebody Call Osawatamie On This Guy

He's still at it. He's still pushing for light rail. Here in Kansas City. From his home in Virginia.

And now this.

Clay Chastain sues Kansas City officials and his own attorney over light-rail failures

I'm sure Mr. Chastain's attorney guaranteed him a successful outcome, aren't you?

Notes on a Kansas City Weekend

Things noticed over the weekend;

1)  Prairie Village seems to want to become either Kansas City, Missouri or just more like them.  If you've driven 75th Street headed West lately, you know what I mean.  I don't think any one Kansas City street has ever had any more construction plates on the road than that city (town?) does now;

2)  Meanwhile, in nearby Mission, Kansas, holy cow, people. Johnson drive is a God-awful, bumpy, crowded, narrow, nearly dangerous mess. I suppose that's the only way it can be repaired but what a driving nightmare.  As an additional note, I can't imagine how the businesses on the South side of that street are able to continue. I don't know how long it's been torn up but it's clear it won't be done any time soon;

3) And speaking of Mission, how about that mall, eh?  Seems only two questions come up:  First, will that thing ever be redone? And second, wouldn't it be terrific if they just hadn't torn down the old one?

And finally,

4)  What on Earth would get someone--anyone--who's sane, anyway, to move 1/2 way across the country---all the way to Virginia, for pity's sake---but to STILL, after all these years, focus on our city, Kansas City, and whether or not we build light rail?  What sick, twisted disease must be running around your body or mind to make you fixate like that? It has to be a combination of outrageous egotism and OCD, don't you think?

And I refuse to mention that person's name in any way here, ever, but the surname rhymes with *ss-stain.

Detroit does what Kansas City should (on light rail)

So many people have left and are leaving Detroit, they're having to bulldoze whole blocks of homes that have been abandoned yet they have the fortitude and vision to still look forward:

Detroit Gets $25M In Federal Funding For Woodward Light Rail

From the article:

 

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - The U.S. government plans to spend $25 million on a light-rail system through the heart of Detroit, a development federal, state and local leaders said Friday will finally allow the city to join the many other major urban centers that have had mass transit operations for decades.

“We’re the only place that didn’t have this,” Gov. Rick Snyder said at a morning news event, adding that 24 attempts have been made over the past 40 years to develop a modern public transit system in Detroit.

No, Governor Snyder.  Not the only place.

Progress in Kansas City: Here we go again, folks

Seeing this headline in the Star today: KC landlord sends letters to tenants opposing streetcar plan

It reminds me of when they talked, several years ago, of light rail going through town, down Broadway.

At the time, another crusty, old, rich, white man--that time it was James B. Nutter--opposed the whole idea.

Obviously he got his way.

This time it's Roger Buford who, the paper tells us, is "president of Old Town Management, Inc."

Not only is he agin' it, but check this out--he "said his company distributed letters to about 1,500 units within the proposed downtown streetcar district, warning about possible rent increases if the streetcar project moves forward."

So if you don't like something, threaten to increase the rents of all you can. That way you can be sure of generating at least that many votes against it, or more, depending how many live there and vote. It's genius.

I have to say, I've made it clear I'm no Clay Chastain supporter, far from it, but I'm for mass transit. I'm for reducing the number of cars on the roads and I'm for cutting down the pollution and CO2 emissions in the area. Heck, I want to see that nationwide.

At this rate, Kansas City will never get "off the dime" and get a starter light-rail line going. We should at least have one going from the airport to downtown and the Plaza. Then, later, we could and should expand it from there, out East and West and South.

At this rate, we'll never get there.

Link: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/30/3633656/kc-landlord-sends-letters-to-tenants.html; http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/30/3633526/once-again-rail-plans-hang-in.html

An overnight celebration of Kansas City and the rail town it is

Fortunately we don't have a Republican governor

Unlike Florida, where their Republican Governor Rick Scott declined taking $2.4 billion (yes, two point four BILLION DOLLARS) for his state, so they could start creating better light rail mass transit between their cities, our Democratic Governor Jay Nixon is going for it:

Gov.: Missouri To Apply For High-Speed Rail Funds

And thank goodness. 

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to go quickly and easily  across that state, maybe to Columbia or St. Louis?

Wouldn't it make sense, if, one day soon, we could go, again, quickly and easily, by train on up to Chicago, too?  It could take some pressure off our truly dangerous 4-lane freeway that is I-70?

Instead of running for president in 2012 like the Florida governor, ours is pushing for us, for Missouri, for the state, for the citizens.  

Jobs, better transportation and mass transit so maybe we also get off some Middle Eastern oil.  We get a trifecta of benefits from this, at minimum.  

Here's  hoping he's successful with it.   

If he's not, at least he tried.

Link:  http://www.kmbc.com/news/27354724/detail.html

Clay Chastain? Back? Again?

What sick, twisted thing (things?) did Kansas City do to deserve being haunted and hounded by Clay Chastain, again and again, over the last many years?

I'm thinking it was either the racism of the city that divides us, physically, too much, even to this day, or the city sprawl that has us from Platte City to Louisburg and from Odessa to Gardner--or both.

That must be it.

Did you hear this?

Clay Chastain is back YET AGAIN to try to get signatures for another freaking campaign to get light rail? I heard it on KCUR this morning.

Holy cow.

This guy never gives up.

He has got to LOVE attention, don'tcha know? But I've thought and said that for years.

And get this--rather than him come to us for our signatures, he got the lapdog media in town to announce for him that he'll be at Union Station tomorrow so WE CAN COME TO HIM.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Man, that's good.

Yeah, right, Clay. We'll be right there.

Hold yer breath.

I think I might go down myself, with my camera, and take pictures of him standing there, all alone, waiting for people to come in.


Have a great weekend, y'all.

I know I will.

Someone please make him go away

Dear God, Clay Chastain has reared his ugly head yet again.

Holy cow.

What is it with this guy?

Can he not just go away?

Clearly this is the only town that will give him the attention he wants and clings to so dearly.

I think, if it weren't for the Kansas City Star and maybe local TV news stations, he might truly go away.

But here he comes again.

We need light rail, as a city and I'm all for it and it makes so much sense, even if gasoline is hovering a little over $2.00 per gallon but, geez, Clay Chastain?

It's clearly all about himself and not the rail.

Give us a break, Clay.

Go home.

Enjoy life.

Heck, get a life.

Get a hobby.

Do something but let Kansas City be Kansas City, right or wrong.

Give us a freaking break.

Take your ego and go home.

Permanently, this time.


Link:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/breaking_news/story/1508431.html