Streetcars in Kansas City were the primary public transit mode during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, like most North American cities. [2] [3] Kansas City, Missouri once had one of the most extensive streetcar systems in North America, but the last of its 25 streetcar routes was shut down in 1957. [4]
Kansas City joined all but five North American metropolises – Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and New Orleans – in replacing all streetcar networks with buses. Three other cities, Newark, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland, operated rail lines more akin to modern light rail that remain operating.
In 2016, the modern streetcar era began with the launch of the municipal KC Streetcar.
In 1870, horse-drawn streetcars were introduced in Kansas City. [5]
Thomas Corrigan had led his brotherhood of "Corrigan boys" to relocate their road building business to Kansas City and develop its steep, rough hills since 1868. They steadily built the city's first political machine to influence voting in city elections. In 1875, the Corrigan Consolidated Street Railway Company held a municipal monopoly on streetcars, all mule-drawn, and wanted a new 30-year city contract against competition. William Rockhill Nelson, publisher of the newly founded Kansas City Star , considered Corrigan corrupt and favored an upgrade from mules to cable car infrastructure. For two years, he used the Star to lobby against renewing the Corrigans' franchise, saying "competition is necessary for the protection of the public". In 1884, public protest prompted the mayor to veto Corrigan's proposal. The Corrigans' mule car business was sold to Metropolitan Street Railway which turned it into the third largest cable car company in the country. [6]
Cable cars were propelled by gripping moving underground cables, like the San Francisco cable car system. [1]
By 1908, all but one of Kansas City's streetcar routes had been converted to electricity. [1]
When the Kansas City Public Service Company (KCPS) was created in 1925, it inherited over 700 streetcars that had been owned and operated by private companies. [5] The streetcar routes operated by the KCPS also served across the state line in Kansas City, Kansas. [4]
The KCPS planned to replace all its older streetcars with new, state-of-the-art PCC streetcars, which would have required 371 vehicles. Only 24 were delivered prior to World War II, which put a hiatus on new streetcar construction. The KCPS ultimately acquired 184 PCC vehicles.
Famed Kansas City developer J. C. Nichols constructed streetcar lines to serve the new communities he built. [7]
The modern KC Streetcar was installed in 2014 and opened to the public in 2016. There are two major extensions to the network underway as of 2024. First is an extension south along Main Street to connect with the Country Club Plaza and UMKC's campus. [8] The second is an extension along the riverfront on the northernmost portion of the line, in the River Market. [9] This extension will serve to connect CPKC Stadium to the streetcar network. Eight new CAF Urbos 3 streetcars have been purchased to service the new extensions to complement the six included in the initial line, bringing the total number of streetcars operating in Kansas City to 14. [10]
Kansas City Public Service streetcar 551 is a PCC (President's Conference Committee) streetcar preserved for static display in the River Market neighborhood. It was built in 1947 by the St. Louis Car Company for service in Kansas City. When the city closed its streetcar service, it was sold to the Toronto Transit Commission in 1957 and became TTC 4762. In 1973, the streetcar was sold to the San Francisco Municipal Railway, renumbered as Muni 1190 and ran as a tourist attraction. In 1979, the streetcar was sold to the Western Railway Museum remaining as Muni 1190. In 2006, KC Regional Transit Alliance purchased the streetcar, restored it as KCPS 551 and put it on static display at Union Station. [11] In 2016, the streetcar was put into storage because its Union Station site was repurposed. Finally, in 2017 the streetcar was moved again for display in River Market along the modern KC Streetcar line. [12]
Tentative plans to restore 551 to operating condition and run it on the KC Streetcar line for special events were abandoned because 551 is a single-ended car, and the modern KC Streetcar line has no turning loops. [13]
Streetcar 551 is located on a lot at 426 Delaware Street at the corner of West Fifth Street. Denver-based Epoch Developments owns the streetcar and ten buildings along Delaware Street. The streetcar interior now serves as a donut shop. [14]
The Newark Light Rail (NLR) is a light rail system serving Newark, New Jersey, and surrounding areas, owned by New Jersey Transit and operated by its bus operations division. The service consists of two segments, the original Newark City Subway (NCS), and the extension to Broad Street station. The City Subway opened on May 26,1935, while the combined Newark Light Rail service was officially inaugurated on July 17, 2006.
Streetcars have been an integral part of the public transportation network of New Orleans since the first half of the 19th century. The longest of the city's streetcar lines, the St. Charles Avenue line, is the oldest continuously operating street railway system in the world. Today, the streetcars are operated by the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA).
The Presidents' Conference Committee (PCC) is a streetcar design that was first built in the United States in the 1930s. The design proved successful domestically, and after World War II it was licensed for use elsewhere in the world where PCC based cars were made. The PCC car has proved to be a long-lasting icon of streetcar design, and many remain in service around the world.
The F Market & Wharves line is one of several light rail lines in San Francisco, California. Unlike most other lines in the system, the F line runs as a heritage streetcar service, almost exclusively using historic equipment from San Francisco's retired fleet and from cities around the world. While the F line is operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), its operation is supported by Market Street Railway, a nonprofit organization of streetcar enthusiasts which raises funds and helps to restore vintage streetcars.
The San Diego Electric Railway (SDERy) was a mass transit system in San Diego County, California, United States. The system utilized 600 volt direct current streetcars and buses.
The SEPTA subway–surface trolley lines are a collection of five SEPTA trolley lines that operate on street-level tracks in West Philadelphia and Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and also underneath Market Street in Philadelphia's Center City. The lines, Routes 10, 11, 13, 34, and 36, collectively operate on about 39.6 miles (63.7 km) of route.
The Presidents' Conference Committee Car was a streetcar used by the Toronto Transportation Commission and the Toronto Transit Commission. The PCC streetcar was designed by the Presidents' Conference Committee, a group of transit operators in the United States and Canada.
The M-Line Trolley is a heritage streetcar line in the Uptown neighborhood of Dallas, Texas. The trolley line, which has been in service since 1989, is notable for its use of restored historic streetcar vehicles, as opposed to modern replicas.
Pittsburgh Railways was one of the predecessors of Pittsburgh Regional Transit. It had 666 PCC cars, the third largest fleet in North America. It had 68 streetcar routes, of which only three are used by the Port Authority as light rail routes. With the Port Authority's Transit Development Plan, many route names will be changed to its original, such as the 41D Brookline becoming the 39 Brookline. Many of the streetcar routes have been remembered in the route names of many Port Authority buses.
The Kansas City Public Service Company is the formerly most well known name for a set of defunct public transit operators in Kansas City, Missouri, until being sold to the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority in 1969.
Light rail is a commonly used mode of public transit in North America. The term light rail was coined in 1972 by the Urban Mass Transportation Administration to describe new streetcar transformations which were taking place in Europe and the United States. The Germans used the term Stadtbahn, which is the predecessor to North American light rail, to describe the concept, and many in UMTA wanted to adopt the direct translation, which is city rail. However, in its reports, UMTA finally adopted the term light rail instead.
The Pittsburgh Light Rail is a 26.2-mile (42.2 km) light rail system in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and surrounding suburbs. It operates as a deep-level subway in Downtown Pittsburgh, but runs mostly at-grade in the suburbs south of the city. The system is largely linear in a north-south direction, with one terminus near Pittsburgh's central business district and two termini in the South Hills. The system is owned and operated by Pittsburgh Regional Transit.
Streetcars or trolley(car)s were once the chief mode of public transit in hundreds of North American cities and towns. Most of the original urban streetcar systems were either dismantled in the mid-20th century or converted to other modes of operation, such as light rail. Today, only Toronto still operates a streetcar network essentially unchanged in layout and mode of operation.
With five different modes of transport, the San Francisco Municipal Railway runs one of the most diverse fleets of vehicles in the United States. Roughly 550 diesel-electric hybrid buses, 300 electric trolleybuses, 250 modern light rail vehicles, 50 historic streetcars and 40 cable cars see active duty.
Light rail is a mode of rail-based transport, usually urban in nature. When compared to heavy rail systems like commuter rail or rapid transit (subway), light rail systems are typically designed to carry fewer passengers and are capable of operating in mixed traffic or on routes that are not entirely grade-separated. Systems typically take one of four forms: the "first-generation" legacy systems, the "second-generation" modern light rail systems, streetcars, and hybrid rail systems. All of the systems use similar technologies, and some systems blur the lines between the different forms.
Streetcars operated by the Cincinnati Street Railway were the main form of public transportation in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century. The first electric streetcars began operation in 1889, and at its maximum, the streetcar system had 222 miles (357 km) of track and carried more than 100 million passengers per year. A very unusual feature of the system was that cars on some of its routes traveled via inclined railways to serve areas on hills near downtown. With the advent of inexpensive automobiles and improved roads, transit ridership declined in the 20th century and the streetcar system closed in 1951. Construction of a new streetcar system, now known as the Connector, began in 2012. Consisting initially of a single route, the new system opened on September 9, 2016.
The KC Streetcar is a one-route streetcar system in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Construction began in May 2014, and service began on May 6, 2016. The KC Streetcar is part of the Kansas City metropolitan area's integrated public transit brand RideKC, and is operated by the Kansas City Streetcar Authority. It is free to ride, as it is funded by a transportation development district. As of June 2024, the KC Streetcar has had over 14 million rides since its opening in 2016. The initial line is 2.2 miles (3.5 km) long, and construction began in 2022 for extensions north to the riverfront and south to the University of Missouri-Kansas City. In the RideKC system, the KC Streetcar is internally designated as route 601.
The San Francisco Historic Trolley Festival was a heritage streetcar service along Market Street in San Francisco, California, United States. It used a variety of vintage streetcars and operated five to seven days a week, primarily in summer months, between 1983 and 1987. Sponsored by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway, it was the predecessor of the F Market & Wharves heritage streetcar line that opened in 1995. It used historic streetcars from several different countries, as well as a number of preserved San Francisco cars. The impetus behind the Trolley Festival was that the city's famed cable car system, one of its biggest tourist attractions, was scheduled to be closed for more than a year and a half for renovation, starting in September 1982. The Trolley Festival was conceived as a temporary substitute tourist attraction during the cable car system's closure.
Some of the lines were once horse car lines, some cable lines and some electric. All are electric in 1908 except a portion of the 12th Street lines, between Washington Street and the stockyards. (There) the cable line is used pending the construction of some kind of a trafficway between the higher and lower levels of the city.
As Kansas City lays its first streetcar rail in 66 years, it is unleashing a wave of nostalgia for the days when the city had one of the nation's most extensive streetcar systems.
When it came to rail-based mass transit, Kansas City had it all. From the first horse car to the last streetcar, the KC transit scene was replete with every type of public transit during its 88 years of existence.
Kansas City's PCCs - 184 in all - were painted to emphasize their modern lines, with a black 'swoosh' on the sides to highlight the logo of Kansas City Public Service Company (KCPS), which featured Frederic Remington's famed sculpture "The Scout" on a red heart.
On March 31, 1882, The Kansas City Star declared its opposition to the streetcar monopoly then held by Thomas Corrigan. Although William Rockhill Nelson, owner of The Star, generally preferred that the paper remain neutral in politics, he made exceptions for cases where he believed rampant corruption demanded public awareness.