KS: The long-delayed proposal to study a rail line to KCI has careened off track. What now?

City Manager Brian Platt has long talked up the benefits of building a rail line to Kansas City International Airport, which now has no public transit link to downtown beyond a single RideKC bus that runs once an hour.

But a key group of City Council members are skeptical that a light or heavy rail connection will ever happen. So when Platt asked for permission this week to hire a consultant to study the issue, the council’s transportation committee balked.

“A bus right now would be more impactful than a study for rail into the future,” said Councilman Eric Bunch, the council’s most fervent supporter of public transportation.

Citing the billions of dollars it would cost and the years it would take to complete a rail line to the airport, committee chair Kevin O’Neill said he was unconvinced that such a project would ever get built.

“I think we would like to see a more comprehensive study,” he said, “more focused on things we could do today as opposed to just a plan for rapid transit, or light rail.”

Talk of building a rapid transit connection from downtown to KCI began even before the airport opened for business 52 years ago. Nothing came of those discussions.

World Cup prompted rail discussion

This latest push began in May of 2023, when Mayor Quinton Lucas said the 2026 men’s World Cup soccer matches at Arrowhead Stadium would be a catalyst for making long-term progress in the metro’s public transportation.

“We recognize right now, it’s not easy to get from KCI Airport to downtown, certainly not easy to get from the airport out there to the stadium,” Lucas said.

That next month, City Hall announced it was issuing a formal “request for expressions of interest” from consultants who could perform two tasks. First, come up with short-term ideas about World Cup transportation – a task that the KC2026 organizing committee has since taken on.

And second, the city wanted to hire an expert to make “an in-depth assessment and strategic plan addressing rapid transportation needs, particularly the connectivity between Kansas City International Airport, downtown, and other key destinations.”

In a the news release, Platt put the focus on building a rail line to KCI.

“This new fixed rail service to key destinations will ensure our residents and visitors have the benefit of safe, affordable, reliable transit options to move around our city,” he said.

But that rail study never got rolling. The city failed to make good on its promise to hire someone last fall to do that study, and never explained why.

So it was quietly put out for bid again in February. Potential vendors were told that city government was “poised to revolutionize public transit in Kansas City by evaluating various rapid transportation options, such as Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), heavy rail, light rail, and automatic/autonomous shuttle systems.”

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Transportation, Infrastructure and Operations committee, city transportation director Jason Waldron brought news that a firm had been selected to do the work on that project with the code name EV3164O.

Waldron said the identity of the preferred consultant won’t be made public until Platt is authorized to negotiate a contract with that company, which would then come to the council for final approval.

That was the purpose of Tuesday’s request. But the committee voted 55-0 to put the request on hold until Waldron can return with a proposal for a narrower study that would focus on short-term suggestions for how to get people to and from the airport.

In addition to O’Neill and Bunch, council members Melissa Robinson, Lindsay French and Johnathan Duncan serve on the committee.

Express busses cheaper

Bunch noted that the area’s regional planning agency known as MARC (the Mid-America Regional Council) and the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority already has a practical answer.

The 165-page report published in January, concluded that the cheapest and best way to connect the airport with existing public transit options within the city would be to provide express bus service.

The cost of building a light rail connection from downtown to the airport would be $3.4 billion to $6 billion, it said. A commuter train on existing railroad tracks and others that would need to be built to access KCI: $1 billion to $1.4 billion.

But running express buses to the airport every 30 minutes during the hours when most air travelers and airport employees need a ride would be far cheaper. Total startup capital costs: $3 million to $5 million for new buses, with annual operating costs of $4 million.

“You could start an express bus to the airport tomorrow because it doesn’t require anything more than the infrastructure that’s already built. And you could run it every 20 minutes from the downtown bus hub,” Bunch said.

“And could do one from the plaza. You could work with Johnson County to get one from Overland Park. I think that those are the kind of discussions we should be having, something that we can get in place very quickly.”

Waldron agreed to come back with something more likely to get the committee’s approval in two weeks. Rarely does the full council approve anything without a positive recommendation from one of its subcommittees.

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