(The following story by Brad Cooper and Lynn Horsley appeared on the Kansas City Star website on February 17, 2010.)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood handed the Kansas City area $50 million in federal stimulus money for transportation projects in the urban core as well as the Kansas-side suburbs.
“This is a great model. People will be looking at Kansas City as a model,” LaHood said of the area’s regional approach to secure a piece of stimulus money.
About $27 million will go to U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s “green zone,” a 150-block area in Kansas City’s urban core that has been marked by high levels of violence and poverty.
Another $23 million will go toward expanding bus rapid transit lines across the metro area, including one planned for Metcalf Avenue and Shawnee Mission Parkway in Johnson County and another for State Avenue in Kansas City, Kan.
Of the transit money, about $21 million will go to the Kansas side routes and the balance will go for routes on North Oak, U.S. 40 and the U.S. 24/40 corridor.
The money for transit will be for things like bus stops, pedestrian crossings and technology that will give express buses priority at traffic signals.
Notable projects that were not funded included BNSF Railway’s massive rail hub proposed for southwest Johnson County. BNSF had hoped to secure $50 million so it could move forward with the project sooner rather than later.
The rail hub, coupled with a nearby warehousing complex, is one of the area’s biggest development projects. It promises to create 13,000 jobs.
BNSF will continue to work with the federal and state transportation departments as well as community leaders to “to evaluate whether alternative funding options are available that could return the construction timeline for the facility to a definitive schedule,” spokesman Steve Forsberg said this afternoon.
The money for the green zone would go for fixing 10 miles of broken sidewalks and curbs. It also would fund synchronized traffic signals and replace old signals with modern ones that can be adjusted more easily to improve traffic flow.
The money also would pay for paving 40.5 miles of streets, of which 12.6 miles are considered to be substandard. The money for the green zone will be put toward pervious pavement — a porous yet hard surface with tiny holes that more easily drains storm water runoff.
The state of Missouri is expected to get $5 million to help build a 19-mile bypass around the city of Bella Vista in northeast Arkansas and southeast Missouri. The bypass will complete a critical link in the future Interstate 49, connecting the Port of New Orleans with a number of interstates.
The money awarded today comes from a pot of $1.5 billion in discretionary money that was contained in the $787 billion stimulus package that Congress approved last year.
The federal government received 1,381 applications totaling $59.9 billion from all 50 states and Washington, D.C.