KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Two more streetcars may soon be on the way to Kansas City, Missouri.
The city council’s Transportation, Infrastructure and Operations Committee will consider an ordinance Wednesday, which would bump Kansas City’s total order from six to eight new streetcars.
Initially, the city entered into a contract in July 2021 with CAF USA for “the designing, manufacturing, testing, furnishing, and delivery of six (6) CAF Urbos 3 low-floor Light-Rail Vehicles ... that will be used for the KC Streetcar Main Street Extension Project.”
The contract also included options to purchase up to 10 additional light-rail vehicles.
Ordinance No. 220238 authorizes the director of public works to exercise two of those options, according to KCMO Director of Media Relations Maggie Green.
If approved, a deal that would cost the city an additional $10,782,322, it would leave Kansas City with 14 streetcars as service is set to expand south to the Country Club Plaza/UMKC by 2025 and eventually north to Berkley Riverfront Park.
The Federal Transit Authority also has committed money to the northern extension.
Kansas City would owe CAF USA a total of $49,340,248 for all eight streetcars, if the city council signs off on the change order.
The KCMO transportation committee meets at 9 a.m. on Wednesday.
Officials with the KC Streetcar Main Street Extension plan to have a formal groundbreaking next week for the southern extension, which will extend the light rail line from Union Station to East 51st Street and Brookside Boulevard.
The extension will cost an estimated $351 million, including $174 million in federal funding, and local tax dollars from a new Transportation Development District, which voters approved in 2018.
A groundbreaking for the 3.5-mile route, which should be operational in 2025, is slated for April 6 near Union Station.
Eventually, the city would like to add an east-west line, which could run from the University of Kansas Hospital campus to the Truman Sports Complex.
