KC Light Rail

Your source for news and information on Kansas City’s light rail progress

Other Crossings

A lot of pixels have been spent discussing how light rail will cross the Missouri River, but there are other crossings to consider as initial engineering gets underway. While they would have spans shorter than a river crossing, it's likely that there will be costs incurred to improve or replace existing infrastructure across Brush Creek, I-670, I-70, and the Kansas City Terminal Railway tracks. Existing light rail vehicles in the U.S. weigh from around 60,000 (Portland, San Francisco) to over 100,000 (Dallas, Baltimore) pounds each. Even if a bridge carries truck traffic, add a two or three 50-ton LRVs every 15 minutes and you're talking a lot of extra stress. Most of the above crossings would also require interaction with non-City agencies (MoDOT, etc.).

1 Comment so far

  1. northlander July 24th, 2007 5:09 pm

    Most likley the Heart of America bridge will have to be rebuilt if the Light Rail plan happens,if streetcars would be used it would save the cost of tearing it down and doing a new one.

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