Transit Tangents
The Podcast where we discuss all things transit. Join us as we dive into transit systems across the US, bring you interviews with experts and advocates, and engage in some fun and exciting challenges along the way.
Transit Tangents
Befriending the Kansas City Streetcar
Kansas City's streetcar system has transformed downtown with $4 billion in development since opening in 2016, and now two major extensions will nearly triple the system's reach to the university district and riverfront.
• 2.2-mile downtown streetcar line has carried over 14 million passengers since 2016
• Extensions will add 3.5 miles south to University of Missouri-Kansas City and 0.7 miles north to the riverfront
• Fleet expanding from 6 to 14 streetcars to maintain 10-12 minute service frequencies
• Comprehensive infrastructure improvements include new water/sewer lines, sidewalks, and green spaces
• Downtown residential population has grown to approximately 36,000 people
• Maintenance facility tour revealed specialized equipment for streetcar upkeep
• Ridership profile expected to diversify with more students and recreational users
• Mixed-traffic operations require ongoing adaptations including some parking removal
• Some sections of the extensions will feature dedicated transit lanes
Check out the Kansas City Streetcar at kcstreetcar.org or find them on all social media platforms at @kcstreetcar to keep up with their progress.
Doors are closing.
Speaker 2:Public transit. That's my way to roll On the metro.
Speaker 3:I'm taking control, full throttle, stopped train tracks. It's my daily grind, daily grind.
Speaker 1:Public transit, it's the rhythm of my life. Oh yeah, On this episode of Transit Tangents, we head to Kansas City and talk directly with the Kansas City Streetcar Authority to learn more about the upcoming extensions that will nearly triple the length of their system. All of this and more coming up on Transit Tangents.
Speaker 4:Have you ever wondered where your streetcar goes to sleep at night?
Speaker 1:Well, on this trip to Kansas City, we got to find out my name's Lewis, I'm Chris and this is Transit Tangents For today's episode. We got to take an exclusive look behind the scenes at the Kansas City Streetcar Maintenance Facility, as well as talk with their planning and marketing directors about two upcoming streetcar extensions that will nearly triple the size of the system in the city. We'll talk about challenges the team has faced along the way, successes with their existing system and the importance of getting buy-in from the local community. We'll start off by taking a look at their maintenance facility, but we'll go back and forth between our conversation and the importance of getting buy-in from the local community. We'll start off by taking a look at their maintenance facility, but we'll go back and forth between our conversation and the tour throughout the episode.
Speaker 2:This is a tight singleton yard, so this is a vehicle maintenance facility here. Kansas City Streetcar.
Speaker 3:I like the idea they get tucked in at night here at the facility. They do, they get to sleep, they get their baths.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they get their hair done. Yeah they get dressed. So we will start out on the mezzanine. This is the exciting part. Yeah, yeah, thank you. This is the most treasured spot in the shop. This is Bay One and this provides access to streetcars overhead. We've got ground floor access and we also have underbody access, so this is super important from a maintenance perspective.
Speaker 1:Speaking now is Lauren Cruddy, the Director of Operations and Planning for the Casey Streetcar Authority.
Speaker 2:This has been here since opening. We had bays one, two and three and as part of the Main Street extension we've had to make room for more street cars to operate more service on the expansion and so we've doubled kind of the size of our shop facility as well as our yard tracks outside which we can walk you guys through. But this is still the most coveted position in the shop.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we went from six streetcars to 14. So when we go through the facility, you'll see why.
Speaker 1:And is the addition from six to 14 like getting ready for the extension?
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, for both extensions.
Speaker 1:How many did you start?
Speaker 4:with.
Speaker 3:Well, back in the day we started with only four streetcars and we quickly were like yikes and so we added two more.
Speaker 1:We were also lucky to have Donna Mandelbaum, who is the Marketing and Communications Director for the Kansas City Streetcar Authority. Donna has been working with the KC Streetcar since it opened in 2016.
Speaker 2:So we operate 10 to 12 minute service all day, every day. We're in service 365 days a year and we want to maintain that level of frequency on both extensions. So in order to do that, we needed to expand our fleet, and so thus the increase from six vehicles to 14 vehicles.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Yep, we'll come back to the maintenance facility later in the episode, but the tour was around 40 minutes, which is too long to include here in full. If you want to see the full, uninterrupted tour, it's available now on our Patreon. Let's jump into our conversation with Donna and Lauren so to kick us off for folks who are not from Kansas City, do you mind just giving folks an explanation of kind of how the Kansas City streetcar came to be and what its existing line is today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll take that one. So Kansas City the modern streetcar that we have here in Kansas City opened May of 2016. It is a 2.2 mile route in downtown Kansas City. It connects the riverfront river market city market area to Union Station and Crown Center area. We probably average about 1.8 million passenger trips a year, so we're definitely clocked over 14 million passenger trips since we opened in 2016. And now we're working on two expansions of the streetcar system, one south and one north.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and even for the streetcar just running two and a half miles today. Every time we've been on it, chris and I have been commenting, being like from afar, I'm looking at it, I'm like I wonder if this is going to be something that's really used and useful or not.
Speaker 4:And I was like there are people doing everything from tourists to people commuting and everything in between. Every single time we've been on it, regardless of time of day, it's been amazing to see. Yeah, it has been really, really impressive With the extensions. Can you just kind of give us an overview of what those extensions look like and kind of how far along they are?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, and I think it's important to note. You said how busy and varied our ridership is. Since we opened the streetcar, our downtown residential numbers have steadily increased. I think we're near like 36,000 that are in the heart of downtown and we've seen over $4 billion in development private development, public development around the downtown line since 2014. So more people coming back into the heart of the city. And we are working on two extensions of the system One south, which is going to add three and a half miles from Union Station area at Maine and Pershing, all the way to 51st and Brookside, which is where our big university, university of Missouri, kansas City, is, and then we're working on a northern one which will connect us to our riverfront, which is about a 0.7 mile extension. On that, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think we'll see you're talking about. You see all different types of people. You know different types of trip purposes. On the existing line I do think we'll see our ridership demographic change. We have about a third of our weekday trips are employment-based going to or from work. I anticipate that that percentage will increase with the Main Street extension longer trips, more commute-oriented, but I think that's one of the great things about the KC Streetcar it's all different trip purposes and so we'll continue to see that mix. We'll see more education-based trips with UMKC on the south end of the line, many more students riding. So we're excited to see how it'll change our ridership profile as well as with more recreational trips, maybe with the Riverfront extension going to Berkeley Riverfront. It's one of the biggest green spaces in downtown Kansas City. People who want to get out, you know running along the Riverfront bikes on the Riverfront. So I think both bring great additions to the downtown line.
Speaker 1:And even the direct connection to the Casey Current Stadium too. I mean it's really encouraging. I know you mentioned already the development that's happened along the existing line. The same thing's happening along the extensions as well, from what we're seeing. So it's been impressive to see again for such a compact system that is growing which is amazing to see it growing the impact that it's having on the local economy and for folks to be able to get around easier, for the ability for folks to have options of places to live in town, car-free or car-light. You know, having a one-car household instead of two things like this make such a huge difference.
Speaker 4:I'm actually really curious about public perception too. So you say you've been here pretty much since the beginning and you know we didn't know about this when it first started, but I'm sure there must have been at least a little bit of pushback from community. Do you have any good stories of somebody who you've seen their entire perception change?
Speaker 3:I do. I have the best story and I have it documented in video too, if you like it. In the beginning, because we've mentioned that Kansas City is a streetcar city and had been for generations, but people forgot about it and when this project was being designed and discussed and the route locally preferred route was decided upon, people were like no one's going to ride this. What's happening here? We like our trucks and our cars and whatnot. We had a business that is still located on our downtown route. It's a family-run business, been there for over 100 years. Biggest naysayer, biggest just adversary about the project.
Speaker 5:Basically, people on the line were were told, when we put metal rails in, economic development will follow. And I was not a positive guy, but I'm definitely eating crow. Since the streetcar has been put in, economic development followed, and now we're getting numerous people in because they're riding the streetcar, seeing that Michael's clothing is here, and most of the comments were hey, we've driven by numerous times and all of a sudden we're down here riding the streetcar, we're going to go in, and so it's been very, very good.
Speaker 3:Complete turnaround. He is a huge fan. It has changed how he markets his business, who his clientele is. He's had to bring in younger styles in his business because he sells suits and fancy clothes like that and the demographic of people coming into his store changed because of the streetcar more younger people coming in and he said it was the best thing for his business. And so, yeah, it was not an easy go in the beginning and we also are in the state of Missouri. We like to say that our name, that we say like we're the show me state, and so we had to show them. So it was rough and we thought, oh, who's going to ride it? Maybe an average daily ridership of 2,700 trips. We exceeded that right off the bat. I think we hit our first million passenger trips in the first five months of service. So I think with the extensions it's been a little bit easier, even though construction is never fun. But they have something to look at Like, oh, look at what it's done for downtown and look how many people use it.
Speaker 1:Right. They know that the construction and the weight is worth it because in the end, what they're going to have is so good.
Speaker 3:Yes, more tangible. Now they can see it downtown, and it's more than just tracks in the ground, because when the city built the system, both downtown and to the university, they're upgrading all the water and sewer lines under the ground, which some of them were 100 years old, so it's a whole community improvement project new sidewalks, new green space, more trees, crosswalks, yeah, and it's making the road that we're running on even safer. Medians are now in certain sections of Main Street, so it's really something to be proud of. I'm very excited for everybody to get on board and experience it, but yeah, yeah, it was a long road, but I think people like us now.
Speaker 2:So we're entering the shop floor, so be mindful of your surroundings please. There may be active work going on while we're walking through. So this is bay one. We have bay two, which has the column jacks here. So even though we can get underneath the streetcars here in bay one, we oftentimes need to lift up a vehicle on the jacks. That's how we detruck cars, so you can see the trucks here, or the bogies, if you're using European terminology, and we detruck the cars using the bogie lift table here and we take trucks off for general maintenance, preventative maintenance to true wheels, etc. So you can never have enough trucks. And, yeah, so this one's all taken apart, you've got traction motors off of the bogey doing regular maintenance here.
Speaker 3:And our vehicles have two trucks per streetcar.
Speaker 2:Correct two trucks per streetcar. We have a three modular vehicle. So you've got the two end modules and then a center saloon and the trucks are on the end modules and then the center saloon is actually just suspended with articulation joints in between the end modules.
Speaker 4:And it looks like this facility is pretty purpose built for this specific configuration of vehicles. So there's no like plan right now, like if you were to link two saloons or something. There's no plan to change the vehicles.
Speaker 2:Correct, all of our cars can be coupled together and they can operate as a coupled car, but our infrastructure doesn't accommodate for that, so our station stop platforms aren't long enough to accommodate for that. We have certain locations where, like just the block length is limited, and so we've never operated like that for passenger service. But we can operate like that for emergency recovery or anything like that, very cool.
Speaker 1:I'm curious from so. Your job sounds really fun to me, Like you're involved in the planning aspects of all of this, and while we were doing the tour of the facility you were talking about doing timetables and all of this sort of stuff. Can you talk about the process of what it's been like on the planning aspect of these extensions and getting ready for the launch, which is not too far away?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's so much that goes on behind the scenes. You know that people aren't aware of, even in the really early days and like the early planning level, where you're thinking, okay, this corridor finishes that corridor, and then you're defining a locally preferred alternative that includes, maybe, the corridor you're running in the mode type, starting to think about where station stops are going to be located, go through environmental clearance. You've got the whole federal process right Just to get to start construction funding. You know, developing all of that I mean there's a huge precursor to just, you know, a shovel in the ground and these are really long horizons. You know 10 plus years for these sorts of projects.
Speaker 2:But then, even once construction starts, there's a lot that goes on with our team behind the scenes preparing the operations and maintenance team to operate a nearly tripled system. So you know it's not just hiring more operators, it's hiring more maintenance staff technicians. You know it's hiring more maintenance staff technicians. It's learning the new subsystems that are getting installed that differ slightly from the downtown line. Yeah, it's building new schedules, new timetables, digging into the data to make sure that we have the capacity we need to meet our frequency. The capacity we need to meet our frequency.
Speaker 2:It's making sure all of the systems behind the scenes that feed you know passenger facing real time arrival signs, like making sure that's all going to work correctly, and so there's just layers and layers of layers and I mean this is my dream job and getting to have a hand in the operation side and the maintenance side and the planning space is just so much fun and I'm really excited to watch it all come together. We are about we're in the midst of a rail activation phase and so that's kind of the process of passing the baton from construction to operations and there's steps within that and we're finishing the testing phase and we're getting ready for the pre-operations phase right yeah, so excited to see the, the, the streetcars actually on the line when we were kind of riding around on buses and whatnot throughout the week.
Speaker 1:It's like, oh, you can see them there, they're getting ready.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so everything you can see here was part of our original facility. So bay one, one, two and three, so you have Pitt and Mezzanine, you have the Jacks position and then this is our wash bay. So this is where streetcars go to wash.
Speaker 3:This is also where we wrap cars, so we do wrap our streetcars in vinyl. For special organizations, events. We have a public art program, so every summer, one of our streetcars is decorated in art made by a local artist. So yeah, this is where that magic happens, in here.
Speaker 1:We've seen some of them with the sports teams and whatnot on them.
Speaker 3:Yes, we are a huge supporter of our women's soccer team here, kc Current, and they love the streetcar as well, because one of our extensions is gonna go right to the stadium right steps away from their stadium in 2026. So, um, yeah, we have a. We're gonna be rolling out some new stuff with them later this year, so yeah, yeah, I think just the community interest and the raps.
Speaker 2:Uh, it's a real testament to donna's work and the marketing communications committee. Right, they've worked really hard to make sure that we've got the right guidelines in place to make the streetcar a place that people want to have their brand on, but not in like a gimmicky billboard-y way. And people get so excited when there's a new wrap. They want to see it out en route, they want to ride that streetcar, they're looking for it and so it's a big. It's just a really fun way to engage with the ridership and the community.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think when, back in the day, when we were developing what our brand aesthetic would be. You know, our streetcars are just very, very simple, very simple and clean and it's like's like the canvas, right. So you'll see, in other cities, like oklahoma city, they have different colors on each streetcar. This we're like nope, this is the canvas, and then we're going to add some color to it. So, um, but we also like the look of our undressed street cars too.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, so I'm curious. Uh, from when we were first looking at the streetcar it was, I was like I wonder how this runs, given that so much of it is in mixed traffic. Now I know in the extensions there is a lot of dedicated space, which is really nice to see. Can you talk about some of the challenges in operating a system that is in mixed traffic, especially when trying to meet your frequencies and whatnot and kind of things that you all are working on to maybe you know if it is an issue, trying to improve it and mitigate it Exactly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean for me kind of getting nerdy. Again, it all goes back to the data. So you got to look at your operations data right, where are you seeing congestion? Where are you seeing blockages? One of the best attributes and one of the challenges with rail is that it's fixed guideway right. So if you have a blockage and mixed traffic, we can't deviate around that, and so we track that data very closely.
Speaker 2:These sorts of mitigations were already in place before I started.
Speaker 2:But looking at common locations and saying, okay, why do we continue to have people that are parked over the line here on on-street parking? They're encroaching on the track slab, we can't get around them, and so actually we've had a lot of city and public support to actually just eliminate parking in those locations. So where it's too tight, where it's too narrow, let's just get rid of it. Let's put the Leniators in place, hopefully long term, bump out curb lines, provide more sidewalk, you know, or restaurant, you know, cafe space, repurpose the extra space of the roadway and just try to eliminate those problems so that they can't exist there, right? So it's just kind of keeping a pulse on that and continuing like not getting lazy and letting that just happen and not try to fix the problem. The congestion is always an issue, especially we've got a lot of arenas and things downtown and so you've got these really kind of crunch time demand periods, and that's when we're carrying a lot of riders, and so you really don't want to be stuck in congestion.
Speaker 1:It becomes tricky because your ridership is really high, but the congestion is also really high. It's's a double whammy of like if you have one car that's stuck there and all of a sudden you end up with a backup, it becomes an issue so we check our ridership annually.
Speaker 2:We know when big events are coming up. We try to deploy additional resources for that. So whether that's just additional streetcars out on route to improve frequency, or whether it's additional manpower on our police department side, or parking enforcement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that feels like that's the way to help direct and just eliminate any risk and improve reliability.
Speaker 1:And to your point, too, of like being able to build the like, the show me aspect of this. You now, it seems like, have the public support for this sort of thing, so you know, from the PR side of this, to be able to be like, hey, you know, these four parking spaces or whatever, continue to be an issue. I'm imagining that you're probably not getting as much pushback on being like, hey, this is going to improve service by a lot. Like we're not trying to remove all of the parking here or anything, we just need to clean up this one intersection and whatnot.
Speaker 3:Right In the beginning when we did that, there was one business on the route that we had to take away some of their parking and we thought they're just going to lose their minds. They are used to them their customers being a pull up and like going. But after that, when we had to take some parking away from near 9th and Main, it's a natural evolution. But I think also, when we do the extension, there's going to be a lot of education that's going to be had with the traveling public, not just our riders, but those that are motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists, because they don't know what exclusive lanes are, they don't know what red concrete means and all of that, and they may want to follow us because they're used to following behind us downtown Like, oh, I'm in the streetcar lane. So there's going to be a lot of emphasis on the changes on the extension and how we all have to live together and move together on Main Street Right.
Speaker 2:That's a big design change from the downtown line to the expansion. So we have about a quarter give or take of each expansion that's in fully dedicated guideway, and then for the rest of the alignment we're trying to implement like kind of semi-exclusive transit lanes, and so it will allow automobiles to take a right turn or to access the driveway along the route, but otherwise we don't want automobiles traveling in that lane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we see a lot of that where we live in Austin. We have a few like roads that have bus only lanes but it's bus only and right turn basically, and it makes it so the buses aren't waiting in line at a stoplight necessarily because folks will be doing their right on red or whatever you know, whenever they can kind of get through, but it's improving the speed of the buses along those routes.
Speaker 4:And people obey it most of the time, Most of the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I just want to say it's amazing to see like it's so clear how much you all love what you're doing. And I love to see that because I feel like it makes such a difference? Because everyone we've talked to in Kansas City, whether it's been to talk about the streetcar or anything else, like people mention the streetcar all the time, which is awesome to see, and it's because you have folks who are like really, it's clear, you all care so much about it, we need that everywhere.
Speaker 2:This is not something that you see every day, even for our onsite maintenance team. So you can see, the cab is fully torn apart. Right, we're changing out all of our wiring. You think about how quickly technology changes, and so these streetcars were designed originally for the starter line system. We piggybacked on cincinnati's contract cincinnati streetcars contract and so these design discussions were started happening in like 2012, 2012, yeah, and so you think about how quickly technology changes right, we, we're in 2025, and it's always the electronics that change the fastest, and so we're working to upgrade the subsystems to make them as similar as possible with the new streetcars Massive, massive undertaking.
Speaker 2:A big part of what's triggering the wiring change is the passenger information system. We call it the PIS, so that is what is the backbone for all of our passenger displays here. So what's telling you the next stop that you're going to be arriving at? It's also the automated audio announcements that correspond with this information. Automated audio announcements that correspond with this information. It's also the intercom speaker system with the operators for an emergency intercom with the operator. It's your external head signs. So all of that has to be upgraded, and so it's triggering kind of a complete wiring overhaul of the car.
Speaker 4:If people in the community or even outside of Austin, we're not in Austin anymore. Lewis.
Speaker 1:Not in Kansas anymore. I did that the other day. That's what he said.
Speaker 4:If people outside of Kansas City want to learn more about the KC Streetcar, where can they find out more On socials?
Speaker 3:Yes, I mean our website is kcstreetcarorg, but we are on all the socials, even TikTok. So Blue Sky, facebook, instagram, youtube, all of the things it's at kcstreetcar. So, yeah, check us out, keep in the loop on all our happenings, for sure.
Speaker 1:Thank you all so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as well as the tour around the maintenance facility, which was amazing. Huge thanks to both of you and the Kansas City Streetcar in general, as well as Kansas City, for having us. We've had so many pleasant interactions with folks here. If you haven't liked this video already, please do so. It helps us out quite a bit If you want to support the show directly. If you want to support the show directly, you can do so via our Patreon. If you're listening, you can also rate us on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 4:If you want any gear like nice sweatshirts, t-shirts, etc. We also have the store.
Speaker 1:Yes, we're not wearing them today unfortunately Without further ado, though thank you all so much for watching and enjoy the rest of your Transit Tangents Tuesday.