Barbie-themed KC Streetcar funded through tax dollars

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - You may have noticed a pop of pink on the streets of downtown. Barbie has taken over the box office, and now, our city streetcar.

The new addition to the fleet was primarily paid for using your tax dollars.

The KC Streetcar Authority says this was all a marketing strategy. The price tag on this strategy was $25,000.

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The Executive Director of the KC Streetcar Authority says the ‘dream’ streetcar was created, planned and implemented to increase streetcar ridership, promote the Ride KC Streetcar brand and encourage people to visit and explore downtown Kansas City.

He says they use alignments like this to be able to sell sponsorships for other streetcars.

“It wasn’t as much about promoting the movie as much as it was bringing the energy to the alignment,” says Tom Gerend.

The Kansas City Streetcar Authority’s marketing budget is mostly made up of tax dollars, coming out of the pockets of people like Lauri Ealom.

“I just think there’s a lot of things we could do in our city that money could be better spent, I mean it was fun, I enjoyed it and took a ride on it but I don’t know that that’s a good expenditure,” says Ealom.

The Barbie-themed streetcar will be here through the end of October.

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