Regarding the Kansas City light rail article, this strikes me as both a case study of direct democracy gone awry and the worst possible example of long-range transportation planning.

KC voters approved an initiative in November 2006 that redirects local transportation sales tax revenues from buses to a 27-mile LRT system that was claimed to cost only $945 million. The plan was proposed by Clay Chastain, who is (at best) described as a gadfly who lives in Virginia and who proposed similar plans that failed on six prior occasions. The end result appears to be that 1) KC's Bus Rapid Transit system will be gutted; and 2) a boondoggle LRT system will be built, but only for a fraction of the 27 miles predicted by Chastain.

Thanks to direct democracy, a private citizen who doesn't live in the state is dictating regional transportation planning in KC, which is idiotic at every possible level imaginable. And as has been indicated in previous articles posted on Railroad Newsline, this initiative has brought transportation planning to a state of paralysis in KC.

While I recognize the folly of taking the intellectually dishonest position that the KC electorate were idiots who wanted something for nothing, this has financial disaster written all over it. KC will end up paying through the nose to fund an LRT system that won't come close to producing promised results at the expense of a BRT system that is probably a far more cost effective approach for the region.