Want to walk or bike to KC’s riverfront? By early 2026, it will be a whole lot easier
It should be easier and safer to walk and bike to Kansas’s City’s Berkley Riverfront Park area when a new pedestrian bridge is set to open in early 2026.
The Kansas City Council put that long-delayed plan in motion Thursday by approving a complicated financing arrangement that will pay for construction of a bridge connecting the River Market with the riverfront’s attractions and a growing number of apartment complexes.
“What we’re talking about today is a bridge that will now finally connect people from the River Market down to the riverfront, which is something that is long overdue,” 4th District Councilman Eric Bunch told the council’s finance committee on Tuesday.
The span will be built adjacent to the 26-year-old Grand Boulevard viaduct, which has no sidewalks and by 2026 will be carrying streetcars as well as the car traffic it was designed for.
Plans to add pedestrians lanes on the viaduct were abandoned in 2018 due to costs and engineering constraints. Only recently were city officials able to find money to build the bicycle and pedestrian bridge immediately to the east of the viaduct.
The city intends to cover the cost of the $12.2 million project with cash on hand and future revenues. Of that, $1.4 million was previously set aside. Another $3.6 million is to come out of the revenue the city gets as its share of the lease payments that the port authority, Port KC, gets from Bally’s Casino.
The rest will come from borrowed money that the city plans to pay off with redirected funds that it pays to support the streetcar authority.
Bunch, a public transit advocate and co-founder of BikeWalkKC, sponsored the ordinance. He says the bridge is needed due to all the residential and commercial development occurring along the riverfront.
“We already have just maybe under 1,000 people living on the riverfront now, and they have no access other than a road without sidewalks to get out and into downtown,” he said. “Plus, there’s several hundred units on the way because the riverfront is really experiencing quite a rebirth, which is a very exciting thing.”
He also noted that the 11,000-seat CPKC Stadium regularly sells out for KC Current soccer games. Many fans now walk the 1.6 miles from the River Market to the stadium along the Riverfront Heritage Trail, because there isn’t enough parking to accommodate all of them, and the closest streetcar stop is at 3rd and Grand.
But many walkers ignore the warning signs and save themselves a third of a mile by walking on the shoulders of the viaduct instead of taking the trail, which can be unsafe and slows the shuttle busses that transport other fans from Current games to two streetcar stops and a remote parking lot downtown.
The new bridge would also make it safer for cyclists to get to the free bike parking area at the stadium by not having to compete for lane space with cars on the viaduct.
The Current has been encouraging fans to find alternate means of transportation to games other than traveling by car with the idea that the streetcar line would make it easier to do that. But construction of the $61 million extension from the River Market to the riverfront was delayed due to financial issues.
KC Streetcar executive director Tom Gerend said recently that he hopes to have it in operation in early 2026, roughly coinciding with completion of the pedestrian bridge.
