Ten years ago, a 2.2-mile streetcar system opened in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Now it’s growing, with a $350 million, 3.5-mile extension to the south span that opened last fall. A $61 million, nearly mile-long northward extension is slated to open this spring, with construction underway on a new $5 million station pavilion and public space at Berkley Riverfront Park.
“We’ve been trying to bring high-capacity transit to the city for decades,” says Tom Gerend, executive director of the KC Streetcar Authority, recalling the opening of the boot line. “We said, let’s start small and prove that we can do it, that it will work and that the benefits are real.”
In the first year, the number of daily passengers was about 6,600 trips, twice as much as planned, and millions of dollars were invested in related development.
“It redefined our downtown,” says Gerend.
When the authority began planning expansions, it decided to forego a typical fare-based scenario. Voters approved by 70 percent the payment of a 1 percent sales tax on retail purchases within the transportation development district area, assessments based on their property values and parking assessments. The funds fuel construction, operations and maintenance, Gerend says.
“Let’s take the fare out, folks [ride the streetcar to] We buy things and collect the indirect rates” of the sales tax, he says, adding that the authority saves money by not having to spend on collecting and enforcing rates. “It’s a symbiotic relationship.”
The South Slope
The streetcar authority partnered with the city and the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority on the Main Street South Extension, which received a $174 million federal grant.
HDR, which led the boot system design, reprises its role for the extensions. “Once you go south, where the initial line ends, it goes through the core of the central business district,” says Nick Stadem, senior vice president of HDR. The tram shares alignment space with a six-lane road and buses. The goal, Stadem says, is to create an opportunity for urban renewal that could include increasing sidewalks, narrowing the road and creating green space.
A joint venture of Herzog Contracting Corp. and Stacy and Witbeck built the south extension using a construction manager at risk contract over five years. The alignment included a couple of “significant hills” of up to 7% gradient, notes Jon Collins, the joint venture’s project manager.
“The biggest challenge was the congested work area,” he adds. “There was a lot of traffic and a lot of businesses like the Federal Reserve and the Westin. We were never able to close the road.”
The team formed hundreds of traffic control plans, new drainage systems, main street and intersection improvements, and built 15 stations and a new vehicle maintenance facility. Every day at 1 p.m., “we got together and talked about the plan for the next day,” he says. He also hired a subspecialist in community outreach. The route connects with the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
Redevelopment of the River
The Kansas City Port Authority joined project partners for the northern extension in a public-private partnership, contributing funds in addition to a $32 million federal grant.
Radmacher Brothers Excavating is leading a team building the northward extension of the river under a progressive design-build contract. Most of the extension runs along the curved Grand Avenue viaduct, Stadem notes. “It was not designed for an embedded lane, nor wide enough for a separated track.”
voestalpine Railway Systems Nortrak, a subsidiary of an Austrian railway systems company, provided a specialized rail that could fit on the bridge. The lineup ends near KC Current Stadium.
Burns & McDonnell is leading the design and construction team for the $5 million CPKC pavilion located in the North Terminal. The public meeting space on the south platform includes a 12-foot-tall structural steel canopy clad in metal panels and supported by 11 structural steel columns on 6-foot by 6-foot by 3-foot concrete bases, according to the company’s website. The pavilion is scheduled to open at the end of the year.
Gerend says that because of the northern extension, there are now 1,200 occupied units on the waterfront, with 1,000 more under construction. “When we started planning, there was nothing,” he says. Now, the city anticipates about $1 billion in developments by the end of the decade.
The streetcar authority is continuing studies on three possible expansions, including a roughly 6-mile east-west line, an extension over the Missouri River north of Kansas City and an extension to the 18th and Vine district.
