Crazy Train

Transit advocates express cautious optimism for commuter rail. "The I-70 one is actually pretty easy to do," says Greg Lever, the Regional Transit Alliance executive director. Jarrold says commuter rail has "some real potential," especially along I-70.

Yet, even as commutes have grown more horrendous, commuter rail is years away from becoming a reality, if it ever does.

The slow pace of change frustrates Silk, who calls Kansas City's transportation system archaic. "Kansas City is an overly conservative city that is always afraid it's going to succeed at something," he says.

At 10:35, another freight train runs under the bridge, aiming west.

Clay Chastain admits he's made mistakes.

His most famous blunder: taking notes in 1997 on women who signed his petitions (one example: "pretty chunky blond"). The Star reported that he had tried to make dates with some of them.

Chastain issued a public apology for what he called "inappropriate" behavior. Fond of props, he held a balloon and stood with his middle-school-aged daughter at the press conference.

Chastain will cop to being his own worst enemy at times. However, he says the media committed the greater sin by making sport of someone who tried to make a difference. "The media has fun with Clay Chastain, clowning around with him and marginalizing him," he says. "But it really hurts. The average Joe looks at that and says, 'I don't want to be out in the limelight and be criticized and mocked and humiliated.'"

Kansas City finally became too toxic for Chastain. He moved to Athens, Tennessee, in 2001. Chastain says that he and Valerie Szopa, a lawyer he married in 2002, decided that their relationship would benefit from a start in a new place. Upon arrival in Athens, he bought some houses to remodel.

Chastain had left, but he hadn't buried his clipboard. In 2002 and 2003, he put transit proposals on the ballot in Kansas City. In 2004, he vied for the seat in Congress now held by Cleaver. Chastain promised to move back to Kansas City if he won. He ran as a Republican and came in third in the primary, finishing behind a guy who had suspended his campaign after a back injury.

Chastain also got involved in Athens. He circulated a petition to build a downtown theater with proceeds from a new sales tax. He withdrew the request because of a "lack of support," according to the minutes of a January 18, 2005, Athens City Council meeting. Chastain and his wife then moved to western Virginia, where his activism continued. In a letter to The Roanoke Times last December, he argued for more rail transportation along Interstate 81, which hugs the Appalachians.

But unfinished business remained in Kansas City.

In a 2005 letter to the Star, Chastain indicated that he planned to form a coalition of support behind a light-rail initiative. But working with others has never been a Chastain strong suit. He tends to reject any proposal he didn't write. As Jarrold says: "It's always his plan."

Chastain defends his approach. The "insider" process, he says, produces flawed initiatives. He refuses to endorse Smart Moves, for instance, because it does not include light rail. "What is their alternative to accomplish what light rail can accomplish? A plethora of diesel buses running around the metro area? They think that's going to work?"

So Chastain stands alone. (An engineer working with Chastain tells the Pitch he doesn't want his name in the paper.) Chastain waves away a suggestion that his approach will seal another defeat. Don't discount the power of the individual, he warns.

To illustrate his point, Chastain invokes a famous figure whose clashes with the establishment were well-documented. "Jesus Christ, he stood by himself for the most part," he says. "He had disciples, but he stood by himself for the most part."

To help pay for his plan, which will cost about $1 billion, Chastain is asking Kansas City voters to divert and extend a sales tax passed in 2003 to support the transit authority. Chastain says the project will also need help from state and federal government.

Critics of the plan say Chastain underestimates the cost and overestimates the likelihood that state government and Washington will want to contribute. Chastain projects the cost of an airport-to-Swope Park line at $35 million a mile. Jarrold thinks it would cost 50 percent more. "He can't deliver it for that three-eighths-cent sales tax," Jarrold says. "I don't think he does any of us any favors by sketching something out on the back of an envelope and calling it a plan. It's so thoughtless."

Even if capital costs could be contained, the transit authority would still need to provide bus service. Lever, at the Regional Transit Alliance, says Chastain's initiative would deprive the transit authority of an important source of revenue and result in a 40 percent cut to service.

The aerial tram from Union Station to Liberty Memorial, which Chastain has talked about for years, provides another source of exasperation. Some Chastain critics have taken to calling his latest proposal the "gondola plan" in an effort to trivialize it.

On September 15, the Regional Transit Alliance passed a resolution formally opposing Chastain's proposal, Question 2 on the ballot in Kansas City, Missouri. The resolution asserts that Question 2 "is bad for transit, cost-prohibitive and less effective at reducing pollution than the Smart Moves plan." Janet Rogers, a transit alliance member, says Chastain's proposal sounds neat but is just not practical. "I want to spend my money for what's real," she says.