26-02-2025
Bi-State Sustainable Reinvestment Corridor 1.5 months from proposed route to Legends Outlets
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The 24-mile Bi-State Sustainable Reinvestment Corridor promises to connect dozens of neighborhoods and communities from Independence to Legends Outlets.
People who have access to a car can do the drive in about 30 minutes while people who rely on public transit have to spend 2.5 hours to travel the same distance.
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'It's just inequitable,' said Stantec Senior Urban Planner Adam Jones.
'If somebody doesn't have a car, they can't go to Village West from Independence. They can't walk it, so I need faster and more frequent transit to make that occur and that's what we're trying to do.'
The potential footprint for the project is massive and yet people who live near where it could run say it's important for the needs in small communities along the way to be part of the planning process.
'I used to be a teacher here in the neighborhood and I know that one of the things that some of my families struggled with was transporation,' said Susana Elizarraraz, who grew up in Kansas City's Historic Northeast neighborhood.
Jones and his team is still narrowing down potential routes and which of the three vehicle options might eventually deliver passengers from one end of the corridor to the other.
The route is supposed to be finalized in the next month and a half. The vehicles could either be Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Lite (what RideKC uses now), BRT with dedicated traffic lanes, or a small section of new streetcar route that would only be used around downtown.
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Specific stops and transit hubs locations are still being determined.
New federal priorities from the Trump Administration could impact how much money is available from the federal government for the project, but Jones says a regional transit tax on both sides of the state line could help cover the cost.
It would be similar to how the Union Station renovation project was completed in 1996.
'If somebody is already familiar with a program or initiate, then it obviously helps because they already have some basic understanding of it and we're not starting from scratch,' Jones said.
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