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Heartland 2050 holds its Winter Summit on Thursday

Joe Reardon, President and CEO of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, will be the guest speaker Thursday at the Heartland 2050 Winter Summit.

Reardon ran the Kansas City-area transportation authority for about a year before he took over at the chamber and was also mayor of Kansas City, Kansas for eight years prior to that. 

Reardon says when the concept of a street car was introduced in Kansas City it was met with skepticism.

Even so, the street car idea was overwhelmingly approved through a vote taken in a small development district.  It took about five years to make the street car a reality. 

And Reardon says there were some valuable lessons learned in the process.

"One is how strong the ridership has been.  It has exceeded every projection.  The ridership rivals if not beats some of the existing Bus Rapid Transit system lines in Kansas City.  And I think the second part that’s been important and impactful, particularly from the business community standpoint, is the amount of economic development that’s been attracted around the street car.  In many cases, with little to no other incentives involved.”

Reardon says there’s approximately 1.8 billion dollars in new downtown development that’s either been completed or is underway in the street car corridor. 

He says it’s a mix of business, commercial and residential development.

Last year, the Kansas City street car provided rides to 1.3 million people. 

Joe Reardon will speak on Thursday at 11:00 a.m. during the Heartland 2050 Winter Summit.  The presentation takes place at the Salvation Army Omaha Kroc Center.

More information is available at Heartland2050.org/wintersummit