Main Street MAX moving to Grand Boulevard this fall

After 12 years, Main Street MAX is moving to a new home downtown.

The KCATA’s first bus rapid transit route will move to Grand Boulevard, running north and south between Crown Center and the River Market.

Starting Oct. 1, Main Street MAX will run on Grand from Third Street in the River Market to Pershing Road near Crown Center. The route will no longer wind through downtown, which will improve the service’s on-time performance.

Main Street MAX will no longer run on Wyandotte, Eighth, Ninth, 11th, 12th and Oak streets. The Main Street MAX route will remain the same south of Pershing and Grand to Waldo. Starting Oct. 1, the route will be renamed Main MAX. Schedules for the new route will go out in September.

KCATA is changing the Main Street MAX route to better accommodate riders’ travel demands as downtown develops and grows.

Main Street MAX started in 2005 before the arrival of the Sprint Center, the Power & Light District and the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Downtown’s population is exploding: new housing is flourishing, the central business district is bustling and there’s a new streetcar on Main.

Our goal with the new route is to boost ridership, improve service reliability and give our customers a speedy and direct route through downtown.

“As our city changes, so must our bus routes,” said Chuck Ferguson, the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority's  planning chief.  “Moving Main Street Max reflects our efforts to better serve an evolving downtown. It will give our riders the type of superior service they expect from the area’s transit authority.”

A KCATA survey conducted last summer showed riders overwhelmingly embraced plans for putting Main Street MAX on a straighter route through downtown.  Of the nearly 600 riders surveyed, 72 percent supported moving MAX to Grand. 

MAX continues to be one of the metro area’s most popular routes, averaging about 4,100 riders each weekday as it travels nine miles from Waldo through the Country Club Plaza into downtown.

Like its companion line on Troost, Main Street MAX features real-time arrival information signs, iconic markers and sleek bus shelters.

The move means MAX service will be added to nine stops on Grand Boulevard. The KCATA will add shelters to Grand to accommodate the new MAX stops.

This map shows the Main Street
MAX route starting Oct. 1.