Personal Rapid Transit, Wichita State to Old Town (2015-2019)
Limits
Phase 1: Wichita State campus to the Metroplex via Oliver, Phase 2: Wichita state campus to Old Town via the Redbud Trail, Hydraulic, and Douglas.
Proposed Work
This project covers the construction of a personal rapid transit system to serve two separate areas. The first would be a system to serve the Wichita State campus including the new Innovation Campus. The system would also provide service to the main campus as well as Koch Arena. The purpose is to utilize the existing surface parking area at the Hughes Metroplex at 29th and Oliver as primary parking for students and users of athletic facilities on campus. The estimated 2.93 mile route including cars and alignment mechanics is estimated to cost $20.372 million. Potential savings to the university could include reducing the need to construct one or possibly two parking structures on campus, and to reduce the amount of vehicular traffic on campus.
Phase ll of the proposed project would involve constructing a PRT system on the Red Bud Trail alignment from the Wichita State campus to approximately Ninth Street and I-135. The alignment would utilize street rights-of-way on Hydraulic and then west on Douglas Avenue to approximately St. Francis Street. Primary purposes of the alignment would be to provide 24 hour per day, 7 day per week transit service for low-to-moderate income areas that would have access to Wesley Medical Center and ancillary medical clinics; retail shopping, dining and entertainment areas as well as service to Intrust Bank Arena. Estimated cost of the link is $35.96 million.
The majority of the costs of the projects would be financed through grants including a TIGER grant through the Federal Highway Administration. Feasibility studies will be financed by Wichita State University. This project is a new option to the previous TIGER grant application developed by the City of Wichita.
