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Kansas City Star
Event in River Market kicks off Town of Kansas bridge projectMarch 9, 2002
ERIC PALMER; The Kansas City Star
The Kansas City Port Authority on Friday officially kicked off construction of a pedestrian and bicycle bridge that will give visitors a view of where the city began.
The $4.1 million bridge, to be completed this year, will extend from Main Street north over the Union Pacific Railroad tracks that separate the River Market area from the Missouri River.
It will span the Town of Kansas, the place on the riverbank where the city began.
The 650-foot-long bridge will include a 30-foot extension over the river, allowing visitors a view of the Mighty Mo.
The bridge is part of a 35-acre, $15 million project known as Riverfront West.
The area generally is bounded by Main Street on the west, the Heart of America Bridge on the east, the Missouri River on the north and the Union Pacific railroad tracks on the south.
Besides the bridge, the project will have biking and hiking trails, a wetlands area, an archaeological dig of the Town of Kansas and possibly reconstruction of the old Wharf Building into a restaurant or an interpretive center for the Town of Kansas dig.
The project is a "lifeline to the creation of this great community and certainly a lifeline to our future," U.S. Rep. Karen McCarthy said during a ceremony Friday, held in a River Market building at First and Main streets, where the bridge will begin.
McCarthy helped secure $1 million in federal transportation funds to build the bridge. The remaining $3.06 million is being provided by the Port Authority of Kansas City from a variety of sources, including $500,000 in insurance proceeds the city received after its Wharf Building burned in 1993.
"The project will tie into the housing, retail, commercial and entertainment development going on in the River Market area to provide a rich environment for our citizens and visitors," said Mayor Kay Barnes.
The bridge should be completed this summer but will not be opened until the end of the year, when work is completed on the one-mile biking and hiking path that will link the area to the Berkley Riverfront Park on the east, said Patrick Sterrett, assistant director of the Port Authority.
That trail will be part of the Riverfront Heritage Trail along the Missouri River and tie into a project called MetroGreen, which envisions hundreds of miles of connected hiking and biking trails throughout seven counties.
Copyright 2002 The Kansas City Star Co.
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