The Kansas City Streetcar (opened May 6, 2016) incorporated public art programming from its opening year, placing commissioned and temporary works at stations along the Main Street corridor through a recurring annual outdoor exhibition and, for the southern extension, through the city’s One Percent for Art ordinance.
The art program
The primary vehicle for streetcar public art is the Art in the Loop program, operated by the Art in the Loop Foundation (AILF) in partnership with the KC Streetcar Authority. The program predates the streetcar itself — it launched around 2014 as a broader downtown outdoor exhibition — and expanded to incorporate the streetcar route once the line opened. By 2024 the program was in its eleventh year; 2025 marked its twelfth.
Each year, AILF runs a competitive open call for Kansas City–metro artists. A selection panel of local artists, curators, educators, and community members chooses participants. Selected artists exhibit temporary installations at streetcar stops, wrap individual streetcar cars in full-color artwork, and stage live performances at stops along the route from approximately May through October or November. The annual program is organized around a single theme: past themes have included “Connect” (2016), “Celebrate” (2023), and “Convivencia” (2024).
Funding for the annual Art in the Loop program comes through the partnership between AILF and the KC Streetcar Authority. The program is explicitly temporary — works rotate out each season. It is distinct from the permanent commissions procured for the physical infrastructure of the streetcar extensions (see below).
Key works
Because the program is annual and rotating, the installations below represent documented examples rather than a fixed permanent collection.
2016 — “Art on the Line” (inaugural season) The 2016 season ran July through September in partnership with the streetcar’s opening year. Visual installations included:
- Rachelle Gardner-Roe, I See You — Power & Light District Stop (northbound)
- Andrew Lattner, Alternating Currents — Metro Center Stop / Petticoat Lane
- m.o.i. (minister of information), rail – bike – rail — Library Stop (southbound)
- Rickey Moss, Imagine That! and Intersections — Kauffman Center Stop (southbound)
- Lauren Thompson, Life Turning — Delaware Street Bridge
- White Art Studio, SOUNDSHAPES — Power & Light District Stop (southbound)
Performance events ran Friday middays at various stops, featuring dance, theater, and music by artists including Elizabeth Stehling, Stacy Busch, Jon Johnson, Amado Espinoza, Karen Lisondra, and Beau Bledsoe and Ensemble Iberica.
2022 season Notable installations included Dave Lowenstein’s You Are Here at the Union Station stop; David Wayne Reed’s Mother at the Kauffman Center southbound stop; DINKC Galicia’s Generations at the Power & Light southbound stop; Jennifer Lapka’s The Dieynaba Dress at Metro Center northbound; Raffaela Malazarte’s Mahalaga at the Library northbound stop; and Sol Anzorena’s Take Care of Who Cares For You at the River Market West stop. Devin Edwards’ Darrius’s Garden wrapped streetcar #806.
2023 — “Celebrate” Works included Arin Yoon’s Here, With You at River Market North; Bubblegum Kurt’s Party Balloons at Crossroads northbound; Isaiah Lee’s Demonstrations 3 at Metro Center northbound; Kaitlyn B. Jones’s How to Build an Altar for the Living at the Library southbound stop; Khyneesha Edwards’s Black Boy Joy at Union Station; and Madeline Marak’s Flower Garden at River Market West.
2024 — “Convivencia” Installations included Bei Hu’s multimedia work Our Sky Project at the Kauffman Center southbound stop; Maggie & Ellie Newlin’s oversized sculptural sunglasses K. See. The Good at Crossroads northbound; and Meranda McDermott’s fiber-art installation Threads of Convivencia at River Market West. Julia Morris’s digital illustration work EPH 4:2 wrapped streetcar #806.
2025 Visual artists included Max Dlabick’s Interplanetary Joyride on streetcar #814; Taylor Fourt’s Kansas City Grows Up at River Market West (4th & Delaware); Adrianne Clayton’s Reflection at the Library southbound stop (9th & Main); MacKenzie Fulmer’s Newcomer at Metro Center northbound (12th & Main); and David Morris’s Music is Community at the Kauffman Center southbound stop (16th & Main).
The extension and future art
The southern Main Street Extension opened October 24, 2025, adding 3.5 miles south from Union Station through the crossroads-arts-district and country-club-plaza corridor to UMKC, bringing the total system to 6.4 miles across 19 stations. A 0.7-mile northern extension to Berkley Riverfront Park opened in May 2026.
Permanent art commissions for the Main Street Extension were procured through the City of Kansas City’s One Percent for Art ordinance (enacted 1986), which requires that one percent of the estimated cost of eligible public construction projects be set aside for art acquisition and installation. The extension’s art call — issued in 2022 with a $185,000 total budget — sought both two-dimensional and three-dimensional works at two primary locations: approximately 51st Street and Main (near UMKC) and Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard and Main (near the country-club-plaza). Artists within the Kansas City Combined Statistical Area were eligible. Semifinalists received a $2,000 design fee to develop proposals before a single finalist was awarded the full contract.
The annual Art in the Loop program has also expanded its geographic scope alongside the extended route, with installations now distributed across the full corridor from the Berkley Riverfront north terminus through downtown-kc, the crossroads-arts-district, and into Midtown.
See also
The KS.City Wiki, downtown-kc, crossroads-arts-district, union-station, crown-center, country-club-plaza