#KCStreetcar opening weekend success! 🥰

Great to run into @davekcmo.bsky.social today! I first met him in 2012 talking about getting a @kcstreetcar.org at a First Friday event. What a ride it has been.

Months of community effort to preserve Leawood’s old City Hall didn’t come to fruition as the City Council leaned toward demolishing the site.

Our immediate past chair @davekcmo.bsky.social served on a panel about transportation for KC Tomorrow this morning!

Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance Vice Chair Michael Kelley says the poll shows that people across the metro will support public transit if their local governments invest in it, especially at a time when the state and federal governments are pulling back transit funding.

🚨ADVOCACY ALERT!🚨 KCRTA polling shows majority voter support for transit funding across the Kansas City region! 🧵 1 of 4:

Gilbert Baker, born in Chanute, Kansas, in 1951, designed the rainbow flag that's now flown all over the world to signify support for LGBTQ equality and pride. But he left Kansas as soon as he could. (From 2020) https://loom.ly/Me9ZMd0

Test ride on the @kcstreetcar.org Main Street Extension today!

Deep cuts to bus and rail services loom across big cities, small towns | via Kevin Hardy #ksleg

Workers who track data on car crashes, drownings, traumatic brain injury, falls in the elderly, and other perils lost their jobs. Advocates worry life-saving work will stop.

Big demonstration today at City Hall KCMO about protecting funds for bus service. I approve.

"I want to begin this outdoor dining experience by acknowledging that we are on land that once belonged to a Jeep Cherokee"

Quite a take: “Long-distance trains will disappear. State-sponsored routes will continue in some form, so long as the states pick up the tab. And the Northeast Corridor will be raffled off to the highest private bidder.” www.trains.com/trn/news-rev...

NEW: Passengers will lose nearly half of Kansas City’s bus routes if the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority’s budget cuts go into effect. And they would also lose the rideshare service IRIS, which fills holes in the bus system.

KCRTA provided some strong comments to Savannah for this @kcur.org report. This is a critical issue and a critical moment in our history as a region. Good work to @joshboehm.xyz and @davekcmo.bsky.social!

This week in transit…

A labor economist told KCUR's Up To Date that Kansas City does not have enough available jobs in the area to make up for all the local federal workers getting laid off by the Trump administration.

Hi Bluesky! Glad to be here.

Passenger rail through our community is not just our past, but also our future. Honored to visit with Amtrak today to discuss better service to connect Missourians and ultimately building out a commuter system for KC that connects you from Lee’s Summit to Topeka and north and south!

The folks obsessively posting about egg prices for the past few years have gone strangely quiet just as egg prices hit an all-time high.

Tear it down.

Brightline from West Palm Beach to Orlando! 🚉

Bus drivers for KCATA will be protesting at KCATA to bring back our bus routes that have had to go away due to costs being too high to keep those buses. Thank you, drivers, for sticking up for us!

“Having a fully funded transit system is so essential to our city.” @atucomms.bsky.social Local 1287 President Nic Miller says route cuts wouldn’t just affect union and non-union KCATA employees, but also the 60% of local bus riders who depend on public transit to get to work.

#kcstreetcar testing on the Main St Extension is underway. You can find the team & an empty streetcar rolling through midtown today and Thursday. #ridein2025

Scenes from St. Augustine, Florida.

President Trump has signed an executive action ordering federal agencies to bring their workers back to the office full time. Roughly 1.1 million federal employees are telework-eligible.

A few more tidbits from our “Floridian” journey. Now headed into North Carolina, a bit behind schedule. 🚂

Nearly 100 people died on Kansas City roads last year, mostly on streets known to be dangerous. Now, the city will pay half a million dollars to figure out how to make its most dangerous roads safer.

Crossing a nearly frozen Missouri River on the @amtrak.com Southwest Chief today. 🥶

lol, a clip of a Tesla's vision system trying to understand a train labyrinth.zone/notice/Aq5V7...

I’m 5’10”, the hood of this Big Dumb Truck is almost as tall. They’re everywhere. A driver would easily not see a kid or cyclist, particularly if distracted. That these unnecessary vehicles are somehow still street legal says everything about how we protect corporate profits over citizen safety.

Our weekend.

I refuse to shut up about this: NYC started charging $9 to bring a car into our most transit-rich zone, the haters & trolls predicted doom, but traffic evaporated instantly and here’s Times Square tonite (even after the holiday tourists have left). For a better future, build transit & price driving!

We're examining Kansas City’s tough spot as one of the country’s few truly bistate metro areas, how it has risen to meet the challenges of the state line — and how it has sometimes fallen short. https://buff.ly/4h1Aw0b

Downtown Kansas City update: Completely iced over ghost town.

KCPD identifies victims killed in crash caused by illegal street racing www.kshb.com/news/crime/p...

A driver was busted last Friday for speeding up to 107 mph while playing a video game on a Kansas City-area highway, according to local police. The driver also didn’t have a license.

#BREAKING: Two people are dead and another injured following a crash near Carondolet Drive and Wornall Road on Monday morning. #FOX4KC | #KCMO | #KansasCity fox4kc.com/news/2-dead-...

Vintage Playmobil “city-bus” with changeable headsign! Christmas gift to me! 🚌 🎄

Twas a big travel year! #TripItPro

For all the Platte County voters who may be following me, I've got a trio of county commissioners for you to vote against next election.

This guy ignoring how elections work… www.kshb.com/news/local-n...

Stopped by Highland Park Village in Dallas before our flight to get a sense of what might be in store for our Plaza.

This week, @joshboehm.xyz, @mckelleykc.bsky.social, and @davekcmo.bsky.social and I all went to Cincinnati for a transit ballot initiatives conference put on by APTA. Excited about what we learned and looking forward to rolling our sleeves up!

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Got to spend the day with a great federal client in DC talking about success outcomes and values! #TransProConsulting

KDOT pegs cost of closing gap in Oklahoma, Kansas passenger rail service at $311 million | via Tim Carpenter #ksleg