Kansas City, Mo. ? The latest attempt to bring light rail to the Kansas City area was doing well with area voters Tuesday night, while a proposal to build a soccer complex in nearby Johnson County, Kan., failed to score.

With final totals in Clay and Platte counties and a majority of Kansas City precincts in Jackson County reporting, 54 percent of voters approved the light-rail measure and 46 percent opposed it.

If approved, the plan would extend a 3/8-cent sales tax for public transportation for 25 years, providing money for a 27-mile rail line, shuttle buses and a gondola tram in Penn Valley Park.

It’s the seventh light-rail initiative that activist Clay Chastain has pushed in the last nine years. The other six have failed.

City leaders and area transportation groups hope this one does too, warning that Chastain’s price tag for the package of projects is too low and likely won’t receive as much federal money as he thinks. They also claim diverting the money to light rail will harm Kansas City’s local bus system, which currently receives the money.

Meanwhile, Johnson County, Kan., voters overwhelmingly shot down a plan to build a $75 million soccer complex by a vote of 64 percent to 34 percent.

Behind a well-funded campaign of television and radio advertisements, supporters said the 24-field, 300-acre site in the southern part of the county would provide needed playing space for children’s soccer, as well as a catalyst for nearby commercial development.

But critics characterized the plan as corporate welfare.