Quickly Navigating Federal Grants to Expand a Successful Streetcar Line

• A 3.5-mile extension to existing Kansas City Streetcar Downtown Line
• Eight station locations and 15 platforms
• New spine for the city’s transit network
• Extension runs through some of the densest and most urban neighbourhoods in the city

Following the successful launch of the downtown Kansas City Streetcar in 2016, the City of Kansas City, in partnership with the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority and the KC Streetcar Authority, made the critical decision to extend their starter line beyond the downtown area. HDR was selected to lead the planning, design, construction and start-up of the $352 million Main Street Extension, which opened in October 2025.

The new 3.5-mile streetcar line runs south from the Downtown Line’s current terminus at Union Station down Main Street through Midtown to the Country Club Plaza ending at the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus. The Main Street Extension establishes a new spine for the city’s transit network and furthers economic development opportunities in the Crossroads, Midtown and South Plaza neighbourhoods.

The initial downtown Kansas City Streetcar is one of the most successful modern streetcar projects in recent history exceeding annual ridership projections and spurring billions of dollars in economic development. There was broad community support for an extension, however the project’s expanded scope and capital costs required a higher level of federal funding support. Participation in the Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts Capital Investment Grant program was critical to advancing the project and turning the community’s vision into reality. 

Accelerated FTA Funding Application and Management

HDR, which also helped plan the first streetcar project and led its design, worked with the City of Kansas City to accelerate the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grant application to maintain the project schedule and meet aggressive timelines for funding approvals. 

Though well-supported locally, the project had limited local funds derived from a Transit Development District established by the City to support project development and long-term maintenance and operation. To stay on schedule and fully fund the extension, the City pursued additional federal funding through the FTA’s New Starts Capital Investment Grant program. HDR was able to work with the City of Kansas City, Missouri, project partners, and FTA to identify a path forward to satisfy the ongoing New Starts grant requirements, design reviews and approvals within the available budget as design progressed.

The project was one of the first FTA New Starts projects to be approved through “virtual” risk reviews. These reviews would normally be conducted on-site, with FTA staff reviewing the project corridor and engineering challenges in person. The HDR team collected drone footage and supplemented it with design renderings to help facilitate this virtual review.

During the engineering phase of the program, the project was provided a unique opportunity as one of six FTA projects selected for an “accelerated” Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) as part of the FTA’s New Starts Capital Improvement Grant (CIG) program review. This opportunity required the HDR team to compress approximately 3 months of design, planning and cost estimating activities into 3 weeks to meet the accelerated FTA schedule. The team was able to meet the deadline, while still satisfying all FTA New Starts requirements — executing the FFGA approximately nine months ahead of schedule, on Jan. 8, 2021. The FTA grant provided $174 million, representing 49.5% of the anticipated capital cost.

Designing a New Transit Spine for Commuters

While the original line mainly serves downtown riders and visitors to the area, the Main Street Extension with its longer reach is a spine for the regional transit network. This meant new design considerations, including exclusive and semi-exclusive guideway, particularly toward the southernmost part of the new line. The two final stops, at the Country Club Plaza and the UMKC, include large, off-street structures with canopy, similar to what one might expect at a light rail stop. 

Our full scope of work included conceptual planning and environmental permitting; preliminary and final design of the extension and of an expanded maintenance facility; architectural, right of way and construction engineering services; and startup operations and testing services.

The extension adds eight station locations and 15 platforms to the streetcar route. To determine the location of those stops, we conducted analytical studies looking at the density of residents, jobs, commercial nodes, current transit routes and key cross streets. We also collected community input from major institutions, small businesses and neighbours. The location of one stop was moved to another street based on neighbourhood feedback. 

To help the community imagine how the new extension would fit into their neighbourhoods, our visualization team created an aerial video of the streetcar running all 3.5-miles from Union Station to UMKC. The video included stops and street view images. 

Design Challenges

Several design challenges were unique to the Main Street Extension. The extension route has significant hills, more stops on inclines, long sustained grades, and the steepest grade on the system. The grades tested the abilities of the CAF Urbos vehicles; our team designed additional resiliency into the system including use of exclusive lanes at these critical locations to provide operational flexibility. 

Main Street and intersecting cross streets also needed to serve transit in ways they didn’t prior to the project. A “best lane” analysis of possible streetcar alignments was developed to determine if the streetcar should run in the inside or outside lanes. Factors considered included roadway capacity, on-street parking, driveway access, turn-lane needs, utility conflicts, bicycle travel, system efficiency, route continuity, cost, and constructability. Two public meetings, and several one-on-one meetings with corridor stakeholders, also heavily shaped the final recommendation. A two-tiered screening process was used to arrive at the final design, narrowing a wide universe of options to two alternatives, and then to one recommendation. The outside-running alternative was shown to better satisfy most of the comparison criteria. 

Pivoting to Transit Only Lanes 

Unlike the Downtown Streetcar line, the final condition of the Main Street Extension has transit-only lanes reserved for streetcars and buses on a majority of the route. These dedicated transit lanes and exclusive streetcar guideways cover 91 percent of the extension corridor. The lanes come with a combination of curbs, elevated guideway, solid red pavement with red and white markings, and streetside signage to tell drivers which lanes to avoid. Many of these lanes had not been present in the final design plans but were designed during the construction phase. The initial construction documents included mixed-use lanes (streetcars and automobiles) for large stretches of the corridor between 27th Street and Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard. During the construction of the project, city noted that even with the temporary construction restrictions to a single lane of traffic in each direction, motorists were able to navigate the corridor. This led to a city ordinance requesting that the project evaluate the use of transit-only lanes where feasible along the full length of the project. Our team, in collaboration with the City, Streetcar Authority and contractor were able to incorporate an additional 4.6 miles of exclusive lanes on the corridor without modifications to track alignment of other infrastructure that had already been constructed. 

The final condition of the extension maintains one lane of vehicular traffic that is not shared with streetcar tracks in each direction for the full length of the corridor. Much of the corridor carried six or seven lanes prior to construction; as part of the project, the team reconfigured the roadway to maintain two vehicular travel lanes alongside the dedicated transit lane while tactically narrowing the street with bump outs and curb extensions. This important change benefits streetcar operations and reliability, but also “calms” the street, making it safer for transportation modes other than streetcar as well.

Utility Coordination

HDR managed the massive utility coordination effort for this project. Prior to streetcar construction (which started in Spring 2022), utility relocations were completed within the public right of way, including replacement of an existing water main, relocation and upgrades to existing storm and sanitary sewer, and relocations of approximately 20 private utilities. This effort was coordinated by HDR through an online portal which includes GIS-based mapping, combined work schedules, maintenance-of-traffic plans and as-built conditions. This online portal helped to minimize conflicts and keep the approximately 20 individual utilities on schedule to complete their activities in advance of streetcar construction — greatly mitigating a significant risk to project schedule.

Extensive Startup & Operations Testing 

Prior to the streetcar opening to the public, HDR also assisted the city with extensive startup activities. Our testing and commissioning team serves as the trusted advisor the City of Kansas City continues to rely on for all Systems Integration Testing (SIT). HDR has led all the SIT on the downtown starter line, the Main Street Extension and the Riverfront Extension. This is an important step in each project prior to revenue service.

The HDR team developed a testing plan, test procedures and a testing schedule to adequately test and certify the system. For the Main Street Extension, we split testing into multiple phases to allow for less downtime of the existing downtown service. The initial cutover and opening of a new terminal crossover and passenger platform occurred about a year prior to the full project opening. This phased opening allowed access to the expanded alignment while still providing for existing service on the downtown line. The temporary tail track and new terminal allowed for removal of an existing turnout, OCS reconfiguration and a tie into the new extensions track. This was accomplished with a minor shut down period that also allowed for other maintenance activities on the starter line while the extension team was finalizing the connection for the extension into the existing alignment. 

As we supported the City of Kansas City during the end of construction and start of Systems Integration Testing, our team reviewed the construction certified item lists (CIL’s) for demonstrated completion of each element. Once the required prerequisite work was completed, we lead the testing effort on the mainline using procedures we developed. This was a critical step in meeting the state and federal requirements prior to entering revenue service. After supporting the KC Streetcar operations team during pre-revenue service (PRO) period, we assisted the City of Kansas City in developing the Safety Certification Verification Report (SSCVR) for approval by the State Safety Oversight Agency (SSOA) as part of the Federal Transit Authorities (FTA) OP54 readiness for service process. After approval of this document our support transitioned to assistance during early operation and continued support as the agency grows into its larger operation.

Celebrating Community Commitment to Multimodal Future 

On Oct. 24, 2025, Kansas City celebrated the grand opening of the streetcar extension with several community events. In November 2025, ridership on the KC Streetcar had the highest monthly ridership in system history demonstrating the demand for the 5.7-mile route from the River Market to UMKC. 

The next expansion of the KC Streetcar is already underway. Work is ongoing for the 0.7-mile extension north from River Market to Berkley Riverfront Park. This new extension will serve CPKC Stadium (home of the KC Current soccer team) and the burgeoning neighborhood developing at the riverfront with a planned opening in 2026. The KC Streetcar Authority has also studied several other potential extensions, including an east-west route across Midtown Kansas City, a north-south route across the Missouri River to North Kansas City, and an eastward extension to the 18th & Vine neighborhood.