Kansas City Council members are proposing the formation of a downtown transportation development district to help pay for the proposed Main Street streetcar project.
A City Council committee on Thursday approved a resolution that would allow the city and the Port Authority of Kansas City to jointly ask a circuit court to create the district. The district is expected to include property along the streetcar's proposed route on Main Street between the River Market and Crown Center.
If the court approves the petition, voters within the proposed district still would have to vote to create the district and later would vote to approve a slate of taxes to fund the $100 million project.
City officials plan to use a combination of additional property taxes, a 1-percent sales tax and a special assessment on commercial parking lots, in addition to rider fares and advertising on the vehicles, to generate the up to $10.3 million a year necessary to pay off construction and cover annual operating expenses.
Altogether, the plan has the transportation district paying for $73 million of the project's upfront costs. The city would provide $2 million for advanced conceptual engineering and they expect to get $25 million in federal transportation funding.
