Heat puts KC Streetcar out of service for weeks. Are rails vulnerable to climate change?

Crews are nearing the halfway point in making track repairs to the Kansas City Streetcar rail that buckled in the heat on the Fourth of July, but it will be another week or two before service is resumed, a streetcar spokeswoman said.

“Once we get through this weekend, we’ll have a really good idea on when we will be able to reopen service,” said Donna Mandelbaum with the Kansas City Streetcar Authority on Wednesday.

KC Streetcar had to abruptly suspend service after a rail on the Main Street Bridge over Interstate 670 unexpectedly failed on Independence Day.

The repairs were estimated to take as long as three weeks, partly because time was needed for the new concrete that is being poured to cure. Then, streetcars will need to be taken out to test the system before passengers can ride again along the 2.2 mile route that runs from Union Station through downtown to the City Market.

The failure should serve as as warning about the possible impact climate change could have on infrastructure in Kansas City and elsewhere, experts said.

“This definitely isn’t the first time or the last time that we’ll be seeing infrastructure buckle to extreme heat or many other climate induced experiences,” said Vivek Shandas, a professor of climate adaption at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

And it’s not just rail lines that are buckling. Roads and sidewalks have done so too under extreme heat all over the world, he said.

“We’ve seen roads physically melt as a result of the heat,” Shandas said.

‘Global weirding’

What happened with KC Streetcar’s rail could be another indication of future impacts of climate change as it causes more severe weather, including extreme heat events.

“I think it could be a sign of things to come as physical infrastructure gets pushed closer to design limitations,” Susan Spierre Clark, an assistant professor of environment and sustainability at the University at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York, said in an email.

The failure of KC Streetcar rail is similar to other cases that Clark has seen across the country. In recent summers, there are instances where rail service has been canceled or had to operate at reduced speeds due to high temperatures. In 2021, excessive heat impacted passenger rail and transit operations in the Pacific Northwest.

“Extreme heat can cause railroad tracks to shift, either causing the need for repair or lower speeds as a precaution,” she said. “But it isn’t just heat that could cause those issues. Wildfires, floods, mudslides, coastal erosion, etc., all are predicted to become more frequent and potentially more severe in the coming decades due to climate change, all of which can cause disruptions in rail and transportation systems more generally.”

Most of the infrastructure in the U.S. was never designed for the kind of extremes that are now happening all around the country, Shandas said. Instead the roads, pipes and buildings were designed on historical weather patterns of that community’s specific region of the country.

When talking about the impact of climate and extreme weather events, officials need to think about what the climate will be doing in the region decades into the future over the lifespan of the infrastructure, Shandas said.

There’s a human health and well-being aspect to be considered too, because infrastructure is built based on the safety of those systems.

“The last time we want infrastructure to fail is when we are actively using it,” Shandas said.

Officials also need to plan for potential increases in variability of weather, including cold snaps, Clark said.

“The envelope of weather conditions that we could see is expanding due to what is being called as ‘global weirding,’ basically things are expected to get hotter, but also wetter, drier, more violent storms, etc.,” Clark said.

When investing in new infrastructure, it should be adaptive to changing scenarios. The tendency, she said, is to harden the infrastructure to withstand bigger, stronger events, which could lead to greater impacts when the infrastructure fails.

“Instead if we think about investing in infrastructure systems that are designed to fail safely, we are better safe-guarding ourselves against a wide variety of scenarios we could be facing in the future, due to climate change but also unpredictable social or economic changes as well,” Clark said.

Abrupt suspension of service

The streetcar service was expecting a busy day on the Fourth as people headed to the Stars and Stripes picnic at the National WWI Museum and Memorial, when they instead had to abruptly suspend the service.

No one was injured and RideKC buses were brought in to continue the service.

A preliminary evaluation determined the track failed because of multiple factors, including that one of the rails buckled as it expanded in the heat, Mandelbaum said.

There also has been some deterioration of the concrete slab and related repair materials, which she called normal wear and tear. As part of its preventative maintenance program, crews check the slabs and replace a grout that adheres the track to bridge and road, she said.

The streetcar has seen some cracking and wearing away of the materials in that area, which is normal under Kansas City’s weather patterns and age of the infrastructure., Mandelbaum said.

“That part is a 10-year-old install — the first piece of the downtown line that was placed,” she said. “That happened in the fall of 2013.”

There is also a lot of vibrations and movements that could add to the normal wear and tear on routes on a bridge, she said.

Following the failure, KC Streetcar, with the help of design and construction professionals, investigated its entire downtown route but did not find any issues similar to what occurred on the bridge.

There is one area near Fifth and Main streets that crews will go in and do some reinforcements to the track while the system is down.

KC Streetcar performs regular maintenance checks on the entire route, but there was no indication that the rail was potentially going to fail in any of its checks.

“This is not something that we had any indication was possible,” Mandelbaum said. “That being said, we are going to adjust some of our practices for how we do our track overviews and assessments to make sure we can look for any telltale signs that would be similar to this.”

Lessons learned

The KC Streetcar has already taken steps to prevent this type of failure from occurring for the Main Street and Riverfront extensions.

Lessons learned from the installation and operation of the downtown streetcar line led to a different design approach for both extensions, Mandelbaum said.

For instance, a different type of rail is being used on the Main Street extension that allows it to be installed deeper into the road, she said. Also, the track slabs are thicker and use a more durable mix of concrete with fiber and rebar reinforcement.

“The lessons learned were learned early on in the downtown line so that was already put in place on the Main Street extension during the design phase and the construction phase,” she said. “We do not have to redo do anything on the Main Street extension.”

The repairs being made to the bridge over I-670 is following the same construction practice that is already in place for the Main Street extension and planned for the bridge over Brush Creek near the Country Club Plaza.

The two other bridges — Delaware Street over Interstate 70 and the Union Station viaduct over the railroad tracks — are fine, she said.

Meanwhile, crews are making progress on the track repairs. Crews poured concrete on Wednesday evening and the rails, which have been cleaned, were being set on Thursday.

The cost to make the emergency repairs have not been determined. They will be covered by funds in the streetcar’s capital improvement fund in its budget.

“We have existing money in the budget to, you know, handle situations like this so there will be no city money used in this repair,” she said.

During repair work, Main Street bridge is closed between Truman Road North and Truman Road South. The Power & Light District northbound and the Kauffman Center northbound streetcar stops are closed as well.

While the streetcar service is suspended, riders can use RideKC’s Main Street MAX, which has been re-routed to the downtown streetcar line from Grand Boulevard to Main Street. Buses are running at 20-30 minute intervals and are free to ride.