I rode the new KC Streetcar Main Street extension. Here’s what it was like
Kansas City and I have waited long enough to board the streetcar’s Main Street extension. We have spent years weaving through cones, bumping over repaved roads, hearing the tantalizing “ding ding” of the streetcar tests in midtown.
But on Wednesday, Oct. 15, I finally stepped aboard the vehicle at Union Station, heading south. The line does not officially open until the morning of Friday, Oct. 24, but local reporters, donned in fluorescent vests, took a test drive.
In less than two weeks, Kansas Citians can ride the KC streetcar extension, which more than doubles the length of the line and increases the number of vehicles from six to 14. The track goes on Main Street and passes by midtown, Westport, Southmoreland, the Plaza before ending at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
The door closing chime sounded and I stumbled a bit as we started moving toward Union Hill. The streetcar can go as fast as cars, up to the speed limit of 35 mph, according to Jason Waldron, Kansas City’s transportation director. The streetcar was zooming up the hill, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed.
“It actually started moving a little faster than usual. I wasn’t expecting that,” said Travon Davis, a Titan security guard who works on the streetcar.
Davis and his fellow security guards will patrol the streetcars along the length of the route.
We zipped along Main, past people dining al fresco at Soli Deo and school kids at St. Paul’s Episcopal Day School. With the extension, the streetcar takes approximately 30 minutes to go from the River Market to UMKC and vice versa. Like now, the vehicles will come every 10-15 minutes and run until midnight on weekdays and 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
On average, it takes 1.5 minutes between each stop, though this depends on a variety of factors like vehicle traffic and the number of stops requested, people getting on and off at each stop and red lights, according to Donna Mandelbaum, the spokesperson for the KC Streetcar Authority.
The Plaza stop is the biggest, with both bus stops and a two-sided streetcar stops. The airy hub, complete with a blue-toned glass overhang and benches, feels like a train platform.
The streetcar project has been in the works for almost a decade. In May 2016, the original streetcar line opened in downtown Kansas City taking passengers from the River Market to Union Station. Just a month later, transportation advocates started pushing for a southern extension to UMKC. Midtown voters agreed to increase sales and property taxes near the line to help fund the streetcar.
As we crossed Ward Parkway and MLK Boulevard to the former path of the Trolley Trail, I could see a sign for UMKC streetcar parking. The spots will cost $1.25 an hour in the bottom level of a university-owned garage at 5050 Oak St.
This is one of two designated park-and-ride lots. In addition to the 160 spots at the UMKC parking garage, there are 54 additional spaces at a city-owned lot near Winstead’s at Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard and Main. The pricing has not been announced for this lot.
You can also park on the street along the route and at free garages on the Plaza.
I could feel the streetcar slow down as we moved toward the busy 51st Street corridor, with cars in the Whole Foods parking lot and laptop users at the Crow’s Coffee picnic tables.
As we came to the end of the line, a long-awaited announcement pierced the hum of the tracks:
“Next stop: UMKC.”
This story was originally published October 15, 2025 at 7:16 PM.
