Highway 54 Construction back on Track

Wednesday afternoon Governor Laura Kelly and Acting KDOT Secretary Julie Lorenz participated in a news conference to announce KDOT’s plans to invest the $160 million in transportation funding that is included in the Governor’s proposed FY 2020 budget.

The $160 million comes from reducing the amount of money transferred out of the State Highway Fund. Since 2011, $2 billion has been transferred out of the State Highway Fund, causing costly project delays, reduced highway preservation work, and a decline in the health of our system.

With the $160 million in FY 2020, KDOT will:

• Increase the highway preservation investment from $350 to $400 million
• Move forward with four delayed T-WORKS projects:

o   US-54 in Seward County                        (Expansion project; let for construction Fall 2019)

o   US-169 in Anderson County                (Modernization project; let for construction Fall 2019)

o   US-281 in Russell County                      (Modernization project; let for construction Spring 2020)

o   US-50 in Lyon County                            (Expansion Project; let for construction Spring 2020)

• Reinstate the Kansas Local Bridge Improvement Program
• Implement a new cost-share program for state/local partnerships
• Enhance its safety program
• Increase City Connecting Link maintenance payments
• Increase funding for modal programs (e.g., transit, aviation, rail and bike/pedestrian)

These investments are aligned with recommendations from the Joint Legislative Transportation Vision Task Force that met last year. You can see an executive summary KDOT published about the Task Force recommendations by clicking here.

There areastill have many details to determine as we move forward, but KDOT looks forward to working with communities and partners across the state to deliver these investments.

To see the information distributed at today’s news conference, please click here.