Kansas City Streetcar still refining the North KC extension
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The KC Streetcar is looking for a firm to conduct a Streetcar NorthRail Extention Study, “to advance planning and environmental review for a potential streetcar extension over the Missouri River to the City of North Kansas City, Missouri,” according to the RFP.
A previous study found that a big part of the more than $220 million cost to expand north would be crossing the Heart of America Bridge.
“It definitly makes it tough when you look at big numbers like that,” said North Kansas City Mayor Bryant DeLong.
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There are a few points working in the project’s favor. KC Streetcar Authority Executive Director Tom Gerend hopes evolving technology might be able to help.
“There’s new technology that we’re going to be able to access with the northern extension, like off-wire capability that might give us the ability to run streetcars over the bridge without overhead wires,” said Gerend.
An updated study would be able to figure out if that and other advances might be able to bring down the cost in a meaningful way. Plus, Gerend says studies like this now are a pre-requisite for very important federal money later.
“The federal funds ultimately end up covering up to 50 percent of the captial construction costs for a project like this,” said Gerend.
“The rest of that is up for us to solve.”
Mayor DeLong says it would be a huge deal for the poeple like him who live north of the river but work downtown and could use a streetcar line to commute.
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But also, previous concerns over the North Kansas City commercial development being able to support a tax district that would fund Streetcar upkeep looks slightly different after the Royals considered a site a few blocks from a potential Streetcar line for a new ballpark. It’s unlikely the team will end up in Clay County now, but DeLong says the property owners are motivated to build something that will attract more people who will need a way to get there.
“I think what makes this an exciting project here is there’s already a lot of economic devleopment activity happening in the neighborhood,” said DeLong.
The study happening now means there are still many years to go before a NorthRail extention is likely to become reality. KC Streetcar says the East-West Extention is happening on a similar timeline and that is still six to ten years away.
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