The city’s other massive infrastructure project now underway will have a far more direct impact on UMKC than the airport terminal. That project is the extension of the Kansas City Streetcar line to the Volker Campus, for which an official groundbreaking ceremomy was held on April 6.
The streetcar’s 3.5-mile southern extension along Main Street is a $351.7 million project with nine stations, transit signal priority and improvements to intersections and sidewalks. It will bring the line to the university’s doorstep at the intersection of 51st Street and Brookside Boulevard, providing fast, free transportation for the campus and community from UMKC to Berkley Riverfront Park. It will also provide easy access to Union Station, the Crossroads District, Downtown and the River Market.
The streetcar station’s proximity to the site once occupied by Oak Place Apartments has drawn heightened interest in a public-private partnership to develop the site. The university is currently assessing its needs and determining a timeline for future development at the streetcar terminus.
Additionally, a UMKC professor and several students had the opportunity to contribute ideas for the streetcar stop at the Volker Campus. Bill Yord, an adjunct instructor for the School of Computing and Engineering, also serves as senior project manager with the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) and utility manager with the KC Streetcar South Extension. He is also a UMKC alumnus (B.S.C.E. '01, M.S. '09).
Yord reached out to streetcar stakeholders about UMKC senior students assisting with designs for the streetcar's south terminus at UMKC. Students were asked to come up with design concepts for the UMKC streetcar stop project.
The extension is expected to open by 2025.