Highway Infrastructure Investment
Overview
A significant portion of the recovery funds for highways will be suballocated to the region through the existign Surface Transportation Program.
Funding
$27.5 billion in total. $51 million for the Kansas City area.
Special factors
A high priority for these funds is to spend them quickly, within 120 days to one year; however, the recovery legislation contains no provisions to streamline existing environmental or project development processes.
Status
The Kansas City bistate region became one of the first areas in the country to allocate funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). In March 2009, the MARC Board of Directors, in its role as governing body of the Greater Kansas City metropolitan planning organization (MPO), voted to accept recommendations received from regional transportation committees which will result in funding 39 projects totaling approximately $51 million.
The committees selected projects from a total of 365 projects that had been submitted for potential funding, including 16 from 13 Kansas jurisdictions and 23 from 25 Missouri jurisdictions.
ARRA Kansas & Missouri Funding Recommendations (pdf)
Next, the projects will be added to the region's Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), which documents transportation resources that will receive federal, state and local funding and be carried out in the next three to five years. Project sponsors will then coordinate with the Kansas and Missouri Departments of Transportation to complete agreements, finalize plans and bid projects for construction or implementation.
MARC's role
MARC has a longstanding role in transportation planning and programming in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Current needs and priorities for transportation investments in our region include keeping roads and bridges in a state of good repair, promoting transportation options such as transit, bicycling and walking, improving the safety of the transportation system, managing existing roadway capacity and better integrating transportation projects into the community.
MARC is working in close coordination with the region’s public transportation operators to assist in establishing priorities for any transit capital funds that may flow through the recovery bill. MARC is also working with both KDOT and MoDOT to assist in establishing priorities for recovery funds that may be available for state system projects in the Kansas City area.
MARC intends to work with regional transportation stakeholders to coordinate priorities for applications for the new Supplemental Discretionary Grants program for large scale transportation projects created in the recovery bill.
In Dec. 2008, MARC issued a call for surface transportation infrastructure projects from local jurisdictions.
Policy recommendations
- Support projects that promote system preservation, modal choice, context sensitivity and effective management of roadway capacity
- Engage local governments in establishing priorities for state system needs, using existing planning frameworks whenever possible
- Maximize the use of concurrent reviews and other techniques to complete project development activities as rapidly as possible
