Another Train of Thought
The Parkville Board of Aldermen met last Tuesday night to discuss a battery of items that directly affect Dorla Watkins, the Park University chief financial officer who lives in the Rock House on 9 Highway.
As luck wouldn’t have it, the issues affecting Ms. Watkins are pretty important to a lot of people around these parts, lightweight topics like the Burlington Northern Santa Fe train expansion, the Hunt Marietta mining operation and the Nearman Creek Power Plant.
The other two issues were reported on in this issue by legendary Luminary reporter Nancy Jack, so I’ll pick off the train track expansion story, which also happens to be a park preservation story.
The public hearing on the train situation lasted about an hour, and the City Hall assembly room was packed, mostly with English Landing merchants, but there were quite a few concerned residents as well. Both groups had decidedly different views on the topic.
A representative from the newly formed community improvement district (CID) board read a brief statement that said the CID board favored moving the train tracks south of English Landing Centre at a “minimal impact” to the park. The reason given was for the “general welfare” of the city and public safety. The CID argued that moving the train tracks would offer more “opportunities for development”, improve downtown’s “economic viability” and make the town more “inviting to visitors.”
One surmises these proposed visitors would not be visiting English Landing Park. BNSF’s drawings – not the drawings being offered by the would be developers – would plant said train tracks smack dab in the middle of English Landing Park.
The CID’s endorsement would seem pretty significant until you consider that the CID was passed with a mere seven votes total (to three opposed) in the last election and those who voted on the “statement of position” were seven members of the board — nearly all of whom stand to benefit from developing the area in question. I hardly would call that the will of the people. Yes, working by that train all day can get to you. It can be annoying. I’ve done it myself, but did the retailers and renters and landowners not notice the train tracks when they made their decision to locate right next to it? And trust me, the train will be just as annoying if it was moved just a little further south.
With the exception of a handful of retailers and developers, I have not heard anyone advocate moving train tracks south of English Landing Centre if it means halving the park. Most, in fact, are opposed to losing any significant portion of the park at all. But don’t take my word for it, city parks Czar Tom Barnard estimated that “90 percent’ of the questionnaires he’s received back from residents on the subject are for keeping the train tracks right where they are. On Tuesday night, four members of the city’s land and recreation board spoke in open session. Three of them were against moving the tracks. The one exception? Tom Hutsler, the leader of the proposed train track move and the lead developer in question.
One of the minor problems of the plan to move the train tracks is that it makes very little sense whenever you listen to the major points put forward by the minority who want it moved.
It’s an issue of public safety, they say. If someone was to have a heart attack in English Landing Centre, and the train was moving too slow or parked – as Mr. Hutsler told me it has “5 or 6 times” in the past year – an EMT wouldn’t be able to get through. Moving the train tracks would remedy the situation. Well, that may be true, but if the tracks were moved south the park – albeit smaller and crappier – still stays south of the tracks. So let me ask you – where do you think someone would be most likely to have an attack of the heart? In a science store, looking at microscopes, or in the park, running laps and playing sports? An overpass can be constructed for far less money — with government funds — from the West Street / Crooked Road area into English Landing for far less than the cost of ripping the park in two.
Would moving the tracks make downtown more “economically viable?” It may help a little, but folks, if we think moving the tracks south of the mall and wrecking a park is the solution to lackluster sales, maybe we should stop and rethink that. Maybe we should exhaust all of the other possibilities first. Maybe the powers that be at English Landing Centre should try not painting over the signage of merchants at the development first. Maybe that would help improve the “economic viability” of the merchants down there. In any event, it’s worth a shot.
The traffic caused by the train is a problem and the city has done a very poor job of addressing this. Whereas the queue that forms on First Street is annoying, the blocking of the box at the Main Street / FF intersection is a true public safety issue. When you approach Main Street from FF, you drive over a blind hill. If there’s traffic, caused by blocking the intersection, a driver would plow into the car on the other side of the hill. There must be a law passed or at least a line drawn and a sign telling drivers NOT to block the intersection. The city should also concentrate on the noise abatement issue and the relationship this city has with the railroad. We cannot have that train cutting the town in two. We need better cooperation from BNSF and we need strong diplomacy in that regard.
You know, Parkville is a pretty historic town. The park will be here long after many of the developers and the current crop of retailers have slipped the surly bonds of Earth. The ruination of one of Kansas City’s best parks, so we can sell more “stuff,” should not be the legacy this Parkville generation leaves behind.