Obscure Transit: The KC Streetcar
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- Опубликовано: 26 окт 2023
- Let's have a look at the KC Streetcar. One of America's newest transit systems, it operates mostly on a single short line in downtown Kansas City. With a few expansion projects in the works and on the horizon, the KC streetcar hopefully has the potential to improve transit around the Kansas City Metro Area. Obscure Transit is a series covering transit systems in North America that often don't get the attention or respect they deserve!
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Just wanna clarify that The KC Streetcar can run frequencies of 10-12 minutes when running 3 streetcars on the line.
How often do they do that?
Cause the Delmar Loop Trolley here in the Lou can do the same, they have just never run all 3 cars at once. 😢
I’m sure they do in K.C. Sometimes though cause headways are decent when I visit.
Unfortunately the 2 new extensions are about the only feasible places in the city for good rail transit, (except maybe the adjacent north/south one you mentioned) most of the rest of that city is so car-centric. 😢
Who cares it’s trash
During the NFL Draft, 5 cars were used on the route. Run frequency was 3 minutes.
Most hours of the week 3 are running, 4 are often put into service for busy events/weekends.@@StLouis-yu9iz
I went to the NFL Draft in KC and this was a life saver! Honestly my love and obsession with public transit began because of the great experience I had on the KC Streetcar.
Good video! KC streetcar is pretty awesome to have, but can't wait until it's expansion so it becomes more usable for so many more commuters.
In the past few days KC has actually announced a partnership with the USdot to potentially receive funding for "reconnecting Kansas city" , a literail system. One that would go from the downtown streetcar to the airport, and a literail connection along 71 highway south. And a final E/W Streetcar route between Arrowhead stadium and Ku med center. It's really hard to find information about this, the most whole bit of information I have found is within an Instagram post from the city of Kansas city 3 days ago wirh details about the plan
Good luck getting the folks in Jeff City to green light that. They’ve been blocking funding for our trolley and new North/South line forever. :/
Is "literail" short for "literal rail" (as opposed to "metaphorical rail") or did you mean "light rail?"
Yeap. I lived in Zürich Switzerland for a long time and the street car infrastructure is extensive and absolutely awesome. The more lines you have the more the utility is increased and you get more and more passengers with every added stop. From there it's a positive feedback loop.
Streetcars are easily the best transportation system for cities. They're so convenient to get on and off, you can see out during the ride, they normally are quiter and have much less vibrations and movement than a bus making the experience more pleasurable, they're electric thus contribute to less air pollution... I could go on forever.
I just love street cars.
I live a few blocks from the line and take it regularly. Its a key decider in where I live. I do also take busses as well (which are also free). However despite your reporting, the Main Street Extension (which is very close to physical construction completion) does NOT include a ROW and does run in a traffic lane. There has been recent talk from the Mayor and members of the city council that we should (and could) give it its own lane (knowing that roads of been down to one lane during construction and the world has not needed) but nothing has been decided. And sadly if we do it now, there's little opportunity to build in the separation that we'd want to keep cars from trying to join the streetcar lane. Certainly not in the way we might have been able to do if we had designed with that in mind from the start.
The Delmar Loop Trolley here in StL has the same problem. 😢 at least they actually run the trolley on the west side of the state regularly. 😅
Kansas Citian here. I have - and will again - taken the Streetcar a few times, but not as much as I'd like to simply because I don't live Downtown. I'm really excited about the extensions (Main Street is now 70% done, Riverfront started today, and - as far as I know - they're going heavy on planning for the East-West route through Midtown). I think it's a good start, but only the beginning. Among other things, I have an active petition for streetcars in Johnson County.
How do I sign that petition
I live a few blocks from the KC streetcar - I love it! Once the expansion is complete in 2025, I would not be surprised at all if more transit funding within the KC metro is approved/announced. The existing line already has very high ridership rates for city of this size. The future is bright!
It's great to see any sort of progress for public transit in KC. The extensions will be amazing, but I do really really hope we can get that east west route eventually
That extension looks fantastic, glad to see this kind of funding on a transit project.
Agreed! 💚
Its clearly small and in fairly early days, but honestly this seems like a real transit success story. Its nice to see! It may be quaint, but its clearly being built with great care to make sure it really works. Better a modest project that gets through than an ambitious one that never happens!
LOVE the KC Street Car. We made a trip to KC (from Calif.) in late 2016 just to ride the street car. We walked from Union Station to the Country Club area and we were so excited to hear they were extending the street car down there. It's so obvious. Extending to the River Market area is also a no-brainer. We are planning a return trip after the new extensions is completed (2026?). We really love KC as a city as well. We were there for several days without a car and totally took-in the downtown area. I hope COVID hasn't killed downtown like it has so many other cities. Good job. Thanx.
I’m glad you enjoyed your time in Missouri! Might I suggest visiting the better city in the state though; St. Louis. StL is THE most underrated city in the Americas. We also have a trolley that goes through a great mixed use entertainment neighborhood (Delmar Loop).
Plus we have a metro system with 2 east/west lines and should be getting a north/south tram (dedicated row) soon too! Downtown K.C. is pretty nice, I’ll admit that; however the rest of the city is so soulless and car-centric. StL was the third biggest metro in the U.S. for a time so we still have plenty of great urban fabric from the Victorian era left. 😊
Just missed a big update this week. DOT funding for an east west line form ku med to stadium and a rail from downtown to the airport.
I would personally like a river market to kck or a west bottoms westside sw Blvd Roeland park line but those too far out
I love KC, and our streetcar. KC isn’t dense enough overall to support a proper light rail system. But we’re the perfect density and population distribution for an extensive modern streetcar network that effectively acts as light rail. With well planned transfer stations and decent headways, I think KC will prove that light /heavy rail aren’t the only viable options for rail based transit.
awesome video!! i love riding the streetcar and try to take it as frequently as possible! i can't wait for the expansions to come :D one issue is the lack of dedicated lanes which really slows it down, but as you noted there's dedicated lanes on the current expansion being constructed to UMKC
If start banning cars from its r.o.w. You won’t have to worry about traffic. 😉
I work next to the Library station and love riding the streetcar. I'm able to hop on at lunch and go eat a different restaurants that I wouldn't without this convenience. It's always clean, safe and fast.
It looks like one of the best attempt at a modern tram system out of any of the "New Streetcar" systems in the USA. But god the obsession with not putting the trams in dedicated lanes is still upsetting, even on the new extension, it'll run large portions in mixed traffic, all while using trams that are so small they only hold about the same number of passengers as an articulated bus.
They hold more than an artic but yea definitely a little disappointing that the ROW isn’t dedicated
@@climateandtransitdedicated row won’t be as much of a problem if we just keep laying new tracks until we’ve surpassed our historic system lengths. Then we can start congestion pricing to remove the cars from the rails! 😁
@@climateandtransit IDK about that, it doesn't look like it could ever carry more than 110 passengers max which is far below many articulated bus models that are often certified to carry upwards of 150 passengers, with bi articulated ones being even higher. You'd generally need 5 segment vehicles to surpass the capacity of an articulated bus, like what you see on most European light rail systems.
@@drdewott9154two articulated busses can replace about one of these streetcars you can fill a streetcar exactly as packed as a bus and even more.
beautiful basque train. the basque people surely make good stuff! caf is awesome
It definitely needs an extension north of the river, eventually it needs to go to the airport then maybe Platte City.
I rode it while on vacation in KC 2 weeks ago. It would definitely benefit from more frequency and dedicated lanes, especially during the late afternoon when it was getting stuck in traffic while packed with passengers.
Good stuff. But omg so many parking lots.
Have you seen the rest of the city..? It looks like a giant subdivision outside the downtown corridor 😢
@@StLouis-yu9iz my ex moved there, he didn't last long.
Great video...glad to see KC finally getting more public transit. Now just get a line to the airport!!! 😉
I hope you get to visit Cincinnati, the system there is quite similar but it's goals and future are quite opposite from its Missourian counterpart. I've ridden it before, and it does connect some pretty interesting places. However, proposals for extensions haven't gone far from what I've read.
Holy wow, the crossover at Union Station should get a light to warn drivers of the streetcar coming all the way across the road. The white car at 5:06 nearly rear ended that dude rip
There is a stoplight right there, just out of view of the screen.
I really get the impression that Kansas City is trying to improve themselves, but they were given a very bad card in terms of highway infrastructure. They have a good number of streetcar expansions planned, and additionally, they are caping the south highway loop and are doing studies regarding entirely removing the north highway loop. Additionally they are planning to create a train to their airport
I live here and we are so in need for a great expansive tram system. I came from Portland and I mis being able to ride it every day to work and just around the city. they need it bad here. traffic is terrible, parking downtown is a nightmare (especially for the kc current game)
The vehicles used in KC (the CAF Urbos 3 series) are the same as those used by the Connector streetcar line in my home city of Cincinnati, which also opened in 2016.
Another great obscure transit system 🤔🤔🤔🤔
@@climateandtransit Yes! It was made free after COVID restrictions, and ridership is expected to pass 1,000,000 for 2023.
I ride it at least once or twice a week just to have something to do for free, as I don't often have much money.
I'd love to see a video about it!
Once it expands it'll be nice to see the development.
Don't you love
trains, trams, aren't they all beautiful :)
come take a ride! (at folder 2, look my way)
The extension south will make it more like a LRT line which would bring more TOD
There is a lot of surface lots in the crossroads/midtown area but there really isn’t too much room for infill. The northern extension is the one being built with t.o.d. in mind, the only problem is the reason why there was nothing on the riverfront before the new current stadium is because it’s a floodplain. They haven’t upgraded the levee or anything so ig kc planners just forgot about the area being underwater a few decades ago. 😅
An LRT with no dedicated ROW is a huge mistake. It will compromise the ultimate utility of the line by slowing it down, especially during heavy traffic. It ends up being worse than a bus.
There is TONS of room for infill on the extension line in Midtown. The KC Current stadium and riverfront extension are in a 500-year floodplain and protected by a levee, not sure what you're talking about there. @@StLouis-yu9iz
Cities globally tore up streetcars some were smart enough to upgrade them to elevated, open cut or underground lines in addition to bustitution of the rest. Japan wiped out 90% of their streetcars
i wish the OKC street car was deseigned like this
Future KC goal? Restoring the network it destroyed in the first place... Same with my hometown of Edmonton... In 1939 it had 70 km of streetcars with a population of only 90,000 people... Now it's over 1,000,000 in the city proper with only 27 km or so operating now with only an extra 13 km about to open next week... 3 years late...
How does this have better operating hours than several heavy rail/light rail metro systems in the US
Cause ‘Mercia 🙃
@@StLouis-yu9iz well, the streetcar’s in America so that doesn’t really explain it either
@@romanrat5613that’s the joke… because america still sucks at rail rn.
USA doesn’t care that’s why
@@StLouis-yu9izit’s utterly terrible on purpose
2:41
Thought you could sneak in a picture of free real estate Tim and get away with it? I don't think so :D
A transit line thats under budget?!!! WHAT?!
Check out the hop in Milwaukee
Next time I’m in Milwaukee I will!
Just a replica of this streetcar
there’s a design flaw with the Urbos 3. cracks in the frames
Luckily it doesn’t seem to be affecting the models the KC Streetcar bought (knock on wood)
And now the USDOT will be giving Kansas City 15 Billion dollars for infrastructure. The biggest being a train to the new airport!!!!
Here in America we do not call the one who runs it a driver but a motorman as is for subway trains, light rail, streetcar I am a New Yorker who grew up in NYC during the Mad Men era and that is what us real Americans call them unlike Canada and Europe.
I'm from KC, we call them drivers. It just makes sense when we have no prior context to work with and there's "car" in the name.
meowate and meowsit
the biggest problem with the KC streetcar is that because it is free (like the rest of public transit in KC) the car is plagued by the homeless, mentally ill, and drug addicted.
Underwhelming. Residents of this city should demand much better public transit infrastructure. It's a very short line. Many people can easily walk two miles. The biggest negative is not having a dedicated ROW. Not sure the low American standard of something is better than nothing should be celebrated as a good thing.
Not sure how it is that you don't understand the ramifications of the "First Mile."
It's almost like that's why it was called the "starter line" and is under construction for 3+ more miles through the spine of the urban core for other lines to branch off of.
Free fares? The price is WRONG! On a recent sunny summer Saturday, I attempted to ride the KC streetcar numerous times in order to photograph it. I could not even board it. I had to walk along its route to get photos and was ultimately forced used my car to get from River Market to Union Station. It was so PACKED with people that lines for the next train were stacking at the stop even as the last train was departing. FREE FARES ARE A FAILURE!
That just sounds like the demand for the streetcar outways the number of units on the route. Free fare makes perfect sense- if cars can use the road for free, so should those who use public transit. (Yes buses are also free in KC)
@@TheKeksadler Later on the same trip, I took the Qline streetcar in Detroit, which is also free to ride. It was infested with junkies and bums, and one junkie (meth or crack, undoubtedly) lost his freaking mind and started screaming threats of physical violence at someone who, apparently, wasn't even ON the streetcar at the time. He then started punching and kicking the train's hardware Judging by the expressions on the locals' faces, this was NOT an isolated incident. You HAVE to charge fares because people do not value that which they are given as much as that which they earn. It also filters out the wretched refuse of society.
Technically, vehicles pay to use roads via fuel and other excise taxes, therefore only EVs and bicyclists use them for "free." Your comment regarding demand is utterly meaningless because your government has interfered with the demand formula, just as they do with parking requirements -- and BOTH of those things create unintended negative consequences. If pizza is free there will NEVER be enough pizza!
@@colormedubious4747charging fares does not keep broke homeless people off the trams. Adding security on the trams is the obvious solution here.
@@AssBlasster Why not both? After all, you're clearly both a fan of Graboids and a man of culture.
Doesn't even go to Westport? What a joke!
Downvote for the rushed narration.
rushed as in words and nuance were left our for a shorter video? or were you referring to the actual speed of speech? cuz I watched at 2x and it sounded fine to me
@@AntonWongVideo I would prefer slightly slower narration, but most of all, I want longer pauses between sentences. Clearly, he reads from a script that he writes beforehand. He probably makes mistakes, or inhales, or gulps, or smacks between the sentences, so he cuts all this noise out (professional radio/TV anchors speak clearly and breathe without making pauses). But he cuts it too short, the rhythm breaks. You have a certain speed to the sentences, then there is a quick jump to the next sentence, which is jarring, and this happens almost every sentence. After a while, this becomes irritating. The info and presentation are good, though.