Beginning on Sept. 30, Kansas Citians won’t be able to ride the streetcar for several weeks, as the city temporarily shuts down service in order to connect the downtown line to the new Main Street extension.
After more than two years of navigating a mess of orange cones during the rail construction — and longer before that, while Kansas City made underground utility improvements — drivers are getting a view of what the completed project may look like.
Most of the new platforms and shelters are in place, and poles and wires hang above the road, waiting for the streetcars to come their way.
With the expansion on track to open in 2025, it’s now time for some of the final big sprints of construction.
“We are about 97% complete with all track work,” says Donna Mandelbaum, spokesperson for the KC Streetcar Authority. “Which means the work that will happen during the service outage is one of the last pieces of rail that will be in place.”
During the month-long outage, construction crews will be removing the crossover at Union Station and adding tracks to connect the existing tracks with the new crossover at Pershing Road.
Workers will also be finishing work on the northbound stop at Union Station on the east side of Main Street, for people heading towards the River Market, and rehab the nearby bridge.
Currently, the KC Streetcar can only turn around at its end points, at Union Station and the River Market, which means that a blockage or track failure at any point shuts down the entire line.
“Streetcars cannot run in that area while that work is taking place,” Mandelbaum said. “So, the constructors do need to take over pretty much the entire area there to build that track.”
With the 3.5-mile extension, riders will be able to take the streetcar all the way south to UMKC, adding 16 new stops to the line — including in Midtown, Westport, and the Country Club Plaza.
That extension will also provide two more turnaround points, at Westport Road and at 51st Street, allowing the streetcar to run even when one section is down.
The Streetcar Authority says crews will be working in 24-hour shifts and on the weekends to complete this part of the project.
In the meantime, Ride KC will run a bus service along the streetcar route to maintain access to public transportation. The buses will make the same stops as the streetcar, with frequency every 15-20 minutes, and operate during the same hours. No other route will be impacted.
Other traffic changes include the closure of northbound lanes on Main Street, between Pershing Road and 20th Street, beginning Sept. 23. The southbound lane will remain open, and cars will be detoured along Grand Boulevard.
“By the end of 2024, we can expect that substantial completion of construction will be had,” Mandelbaum said. “Which means most of the major work will be done.”
After construction ends, the Streetcar Authority will still need to test the route before the line opens to the public.
The route to UMKC isn’t the only streetcar addition underway. Crews broke ground in March on a 0.7-mile extension from River Market further north to Berkley Riverfront Park and the new CPKC Stadium.
That construction has closed Grand Boulevard Bridge, through about Nov. 7. The riverfront extension is estimated to be completed in 2026.
