Infrastructure

view of buck o'neil bridge heading south

Bridging The Gap

Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump. So goes the steady rumble of the nearly 44,000 vehicles a day traversing the U.S. highway 169 bridge in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The structure’s three steel arches make it look like a small roller coaster has been dropped in front of the skyline. It’s the Buck O’Neil bridge, and the 63-year-old…

Read More >
a tour group in the eighth street tunnel

Digging Up The Truth About Kansas City Tunnels

curiousKC fielded a question about tunnels in the Historic Northeast neighborhood, between Ward Parkway homes, and underneath Eighth Street. Here’s what we found.

Read More >
Kauffman sketch

How (And Why) is Kansas City’s Kauffman Center Shaped Like That?

Peek behind the curtain with curiousKC and learn why architects built the Kauffman Center that way.

Read More >
Kansas City skyline

What Are the 3 Oldest Buildings in KC?

This is my first foray into answering a curiousKC question. I decided to answer (what I thought would be) a straightforward history question thrown our way by Kansas Citian Stacey McBride. “What are the top three oldest surviving buildings in Kansas City?” “How hard could it be?” I thought. It’s just math. A simple equation:…

Read More >
man riding a Bird scooter

Jumping on e-scooters on the fly? Think twice

Exiting her daughter’s apartment building on a recent Sunday, Janet Korte spotted something that looked just like the motorless Razor scooters her children loved to ride. “So I thought, ‘This’ll be a piece of cake,’” said Korte, 52, who was visiting Kansas City from Wichita. She pressed her thumb on the throttle, and the scooter…

Read More >
an old photo os a bustling street/

Do You Know Twelfth Street’s (Famous) Past?

If there’s a street that defines Kansas City, Missouri, which one would you say it is? Obvious candidates include Ward Parkway, The Paseo and Southwest Boulevard. But what would you say to the dark horse selection of 12th Street? It’s a relatively pedestrian thoroughfare now, but it has a bawdy history that reaches back to…

Read More >

Anything Concrete? We Check In A Year After Our Infrastructure Project

Last spring, we dug into the state of metro roads, highways, sewers and public transportation in a project called Public Works? The Cost of Our Aging Infrastructure. Now, we’re issuing a report card, of sorts, to see if anything has changed in a year’s time. We track the progress on our weekly public affairs shows, Week in…

Read More >
A man on a bike

It’s the Journey: Biking in the Metro

Kansas City has one of the highest rates of automobile commuting in the nation. So, what does that mean for the cyclists sharing the road? Public Works? The Cost of Our Aging Infrastructure is a months-long project taking you underneath the pavement to tackle the state of our water and sewers. We track the state of highways and…

Read More >

The Cost of Our Public Transit | Episode 5

Get an insider’s look at what’s being done to improve the region’s public transit system and increase access to jobs in “The Cost of Our Public Transit | Episode 5,” the final of a five-part digital series looking at our city’s aging infrastructure. Public Works? The Cost of Our Aging Infrastructure is a months-long project taking you underneath the pavement to tackle the state of…

Read More >
A bus and a streetcar.

Bus vs. Streetcar Debate: No Easy Answers

More than a decade ago, the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority launched an express bus system along Main Street between the Country Club Plaza and the City Market. Known as the Metro Area Express, or MAX, that 6-mile route proved so successful that five years later, in 2010, the authority added another line along Troost…

Read More >

Local Storytelling. Fact-Based Reporting. Trustworthy Sources.

Help support the nonprofit media landscape in Kansas City and provide a platform for underrepresented voices across the region.