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 building ongoing on a $5-million new station pavilion and public house on the Berkley Riverfront Park.

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

 Within the first 12 months, the day by day ridership was some 6,600 journeys—twice as a lot as anticipated—and thousands and thousands of {dollars} have 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 situation. Voters accepted by 70% to pay a 1% gross sales tax on retail purchases throughout the Transportation Improvement District space, assessments based mostly on their property values, and 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 accumulate 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 town and the Kansas Metropolis Space Transportation Authority on the Important Road southern extension, which obtained 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 way of the central enterprise district core,” says Nick Stadem, HDR senior venture supervisor. The streetcar shares alignment house with a six-lane highway and buses. The purpose, says Stadem, is  to create an city renewal alternative which may embrace rising sidewalks, narrowing the highway, and creating inexperienced house.

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

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

The staff shaped tons of of visitors management plans, new drainage programs, enhancements to the primary avenue and intersections, and constructed 15 stations and a brand new automobile upkeep facility. Day-after-day at 1 pm, “we huddled up and talked in regards to the plan for the subsequent 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 venture 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. A lot of the extension runs on the prevailing curved Grand Avenue Viaduct, notes Stadem. “It was not designed for embedded rail, and never large sufficient for a separate observe.”

Voestalpine Railway Techniques 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 house 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-x-6-ft-by-3-ft concrete footings, in line with the agency’s web site. The pavilion is scheduled to open later this 12 months.

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

The streetcar authority is constant research relating to three doable 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.