Fueled By Success, Kansas City Streetcar Extends Its Reach

Ten years in the past, a 2.2-mile streetcar system opened in downtown Kansas Metropolis, Mo. Now it’s rising, with a $350-million, 3.5-mile-long extension to the south having opened final fall. A $61-million, almost mile-long extension to the north is slated to open this spring, with development ongoing on a $5-million new station pavilion and public area on the Berkley Riverfront Park.

“We had been attempting for many years to carry high-capacity transit to the town,” says Tom Gerend, government director of the KC Streetcar Authority, recalling the opening of the starter line. “We stated, let’s begin small and reveal that we are able to do that, that it’s going to work, and the advantages are actual.”

 Within the first yr, the each day ridership was some 6,600 journeys—twice as a lot as anticipated—and tens of millions of {dollars} had been invested in associated growth. 

“It redefined our downtown,” says Gerend. 

Because the authority started planning extensions, it determined to forego the standard fare-based state of affairs. Seventy p.c of voters authorised a measure to pay a 1% gross sales tax on retail purchases throughout the Transportation Improvement District space, assessments primarily based on their property values, and car parking zone assessments. The funds gas the development and operations and upkeep, says Gerend.

“We take away the fare, folks [ride the streetcar to] purchase stuff, and we gather oblique fares” from the gross sales tax, he says, including that the authority reaps financial savings by not having to spend on fare assortment and enforcement. “It’s a symbiotic relationship.”

Southern Slope

The streetcar authority partnered with the town and the Kansas Metropolis Space Transportation Authority on the Most important Road southern extension, which acquired a $174-million federal grant. 

HDR, which led design of the starter system, reprised its position for the extensions. “When you go south, the place the starter line ends, it’s by means of the central enterprise district core,” says Nick Stadem, HDR senior mission supervisor. The streetcar shares alignment area with a six-lane street and buses. The purpose, says Stadem, is  to create an city renewal alternative that may embody growing sidewalks, narrowing the street, and creating inexperienced area.

A three way partnership of Herzog Contracting Corp. and Stacy and Witbeck constructed the southern extension by means of a development manager-at-risk contract in 5 years.  The alignment included a few “important hills” of as much as 7% grades, notes Jon Collins, the three way partnership’s mission supervisor.  

“The largest problem was the congested work space,” he provides. “There was numerous visitors and ton of companies just like the Federal Reserve and the Westin. We couldn’t ever shut the street down.”

The staff shaped lots of of visitors management plans, new drainage programs, enhancements to the primary avenue and intersections, and constructed 15 stations and a brand new car upkeep facility. Day by day at 1 pm, “we huddled up and talked concerning the plan for the following day,” he says. It additionally employed a sub specializing in group outreach. The route connects to the College of Missouri, Kansas Metropolis.

Riverfront Redevelopment

The Port Authority of Kansas Metropolis joined the mission companions for the northern extension in a public-private partnership, contributing funds along with a $32-million federal grant.

Radmacher Brothers Excavating leads a staff constructing the riverfront extension to the north underneath a progressive design-build contract. Many of the extension runs on the present curved Grand Avenue Viaduct, notes Stadem. “It was not designed for embedded rail, and never vast sufficient for a separate monitor.”

voestalpine Railway Programs Nortrak, a subsidiary of an Austrian railway programs agency, supplied specialised rail that might match on the bridge. The alignment ends close to the KC Present Stadium.

Burns & McDonnell leads the design-build staff constructing the $5-million CPKC Pavilion positioned on the northern terminus. The general public gathering area on the south platform features a 12-ft-high structural metal cover clad in steel panels and supported by 11 structural metal columns on 6-ft by 6-ft by 3-ft concrete footings, in response to the agency’s web site. The pavilion is scheduled to open later this yr.

Gerend says that as a result of northern extension, there at the moment are 1,200 occupied models on the waterfront, with one other 1,000 underneath development. “Once we began planning, there was nothing there,” he says. Now, the town anticipates some $1 billion in developments by the top of the last decade.

The streetcar authority is continuous research concerning three attainable expansions, together with an roughly 6-mile east-west line, an extension over the Missouri River into North Kansas Metropolis, and an extension into the 18th and Vine district.