Northeast News

May 25, 2016

KANSAS CITY, Missouri – Smoke found near construction on Main Street just after 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, May 25 caused streetcar service to be suspended as a precautionary measure – the second hiccup in services this week.

A Twitter post from KC Streetcar officials indicated that the construction was related to conduit work for a street light. Construction was halted at the location where the smoke was found until authorities can determine the cause. The KC Streetcar was up and running by around 3:00 p.m., and Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) buses labeled with “Streetcar Link” on their digital signs provided free rides for passengers along the streetcar route in the interim.

“We do have backup service with buses that we provide for free,” said Donna Mandelbaum, Communications contact with the KC Streetcar Authority. “We stop at every stop just like we do with the streetcar. The service on the streetcar may have changed a little bit, but the service on the route is still going.”

Wednesday’s suspension of services follows another issue on Monday of this week, where a streetcar was temporarily derailed as it attempted to turn around at the Union Station stop. A tow truck was eventually called to pull the streetcar back onto the tracks, and services resumed later that evening. Mandelbaum added that the KC Streetcar Authority has funds built into it’s budget for this sort of maintenance.

“We have built into our budget services such as this,” she said. “We do have money in our budget to cover needs such as this.”