2040 Forecast
The 2040 Forecast provides the estimated number and distribution of population, households, and employment in the seven-county Kansas City region for the year 2040. The forecast is produced by MARC's Research Services staff and the Technical Forecast Committee — which includes planners from local governments and other organizations in the Kansas City region. The forecast is used to inform the long-range transportation planning process in order to incorporate future demand into transportation infrastructure planning.
The 2040 Forecast is an estimate of the land-use change most likely to occur in the Greater Kansas City area by 2040 given past trends, known demographic and economic shifts, and expected changes in federal, state and local government policy. The forecast presents a hybrid of the baseline and adaptive scenarios, where some but not all sustainability goals will be met by 2040. As a result, the final forecast includes about 18 percent of the region’s growth in existing activity centers along corridors that have the potential to be served by transit.
Decline in the region's center is diminished but not eliminated in the 2040 forecast. About 102,000 acres of vacant land are consumed, which is 58 percent of that consumed in the baseline scenario. This results in a savings of about $2 billion in local infrastructure costs compared to the baseline scenario.
Forecast data and documents
- Forecast of population, household and employment change, 2008-2040, by city and county (.xls)
- Summary of forecast process in the long-range transportation plan, Transportation Outlook 2040 (.pdf)
Forecast maps (.jpg format)
- Forecast land use change (forecast_change.jpg)
- Forecast change in population by Transportation Analysis Zone
- Forecast change in households by Transportation Analysis Zone
- Forecast change in employment by Transportation Analysis Zone
- Forecast change in commercial employment by Transportation Analysis Zone
- Forecast change in industrial employment by Transportation Analysis Zone
- Forecast change in office employment by Transportation Analysis Zone
Interactive map
The forecast data can be viewed on an interactive map.
This map viewer documents not only the forecast, but also the data that went into creating it. This includes the data inputs for model calibration, the resulting estimated development probabilities, the land use input data, activity centers, and the baseline and adaptive scenarios.
By switching layers on and off, it is possible to see more clearly how all of this data was combined to yield the final forecast.