In 2016, my former colleague Joe Miller wrote a piece in which he pointed out that the Kansas City streetcar was not driving up market values in the transportation district in which it runs. Miller wondered why the rhetoric of policymakers was so divorced from actual economic data. He found his answer in a 2010 report from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA): “Few, if any, streetcar system operators seek information on their impact on economic activity, although most interviewed consider economic-related questions to be vital and desire further research on this topic.”
Fast forward to today and nothing has changed. Property assessment data received from Jackson County through an open records request show the aggregate annual market value of Kansas City’s downtown streetcar Transportation Development District (TDD) is largely growing at the same rate as the county as a whole.
In other words, the streetcar is still not driving economic development in any substantial way. Were that the case, you’d see market values in the TDD rising at a much faster rate, as properties are quickly snatched up and redeveloped to take advantage of all that commerce and excitement.
There may be arguments for expanding the Kansas City streetcar. But those arguments aren’t about transit (all the streetcar routes were once and could be again served much more economically by buses) and they aren’t about economic development. And because 66% of Missouri electricity is generated by coal, the streetcar isn’t green, either.
Unfortunately, as the FTA reported, few streetcar operators actually check to see if their claims are true. That remains the case in Kansas City.
