Historic new infrastructure investments keep Kansas City growing. Don’t stop progress | Opinion

In November 2021, President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law, authorizing $1.2 trillion in transportation and infrastructure spending nationwide. Less than a year later, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, releasing an additional $891 billion in support for clean energy, transportation and green-collar manufacturing jobs.

After the signing of both laws, Kansas City made a strategic decision to take advantage of every available federal funding opportunity. This resulted in more than $116 million being allocated for infrastructure and clean energy improvements for residents and businesses. Additionally, this initiative has helped leverage hundreds of millions of dollars in private investments in our community.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act are the most significant investments in infrastructure and jobs the United States has ever seen. To provide context, here are past investments adjusted to today’s values:

• The transcontinental railroad was an investment of $1.2 billion.
• The Marshall Plan was an investment of $150 billion in rebuilding Europe after World War II.
• The Interstate Highway System cost more than $500 billion.

The New Deal pulled the United States out of the Great Depression with an investment of $793 billion. Earlier infrastructure investments rebuilt the country and boosted the economy after the Depression. In recent years, the United States stopped funding transformative projects, allowing roads to crumble and bridges to collapse. The national norm became allocating the largest share of public infrastructure funding to areas with highly rated infrastructure and the highest tax bases. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act are reversing this trend, funding rural and urban communities with infrastructure in desperate need of repair at the highest level and giving more Americans a fair shot at funding that supports jobs and development in communities such as ours.

So far, Kansas City has raised more than $116 million in funding from these companion pieces of legislation. We also secured $28 million in congressionally directed spending from the office of former Sen. Roy Blunt, kick-starting the development of the South Loop project.

While the full economic, safety and community impact of this funding will be determined later, the immediate impact includes:

• Investing a $5 million grant to provide safe, community-friendly options for U.S. Highway 71, which divided neighborhoods for thousands of Black Kansas Citians.
• Establishing safe connections between Latino West Side neighborhoods and the downtown business district through Reconnecting Communities grants.
• Improving Kansas City’s urban tree canopy by planting more than 10,000 trees with a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.
• Constructing eight new bridges and completing significant repairs to other bridges throughout Kansas City.
• Providing safe transportation through the Prospect corridor under the Safe Streets for All program.
• Remediating soil contamination in underdeveloped neighborhoods, making vacant sites suitable for the development of housing and commercial uses under the Environmental Justice Government-to-Government program.
• Bringing more than 275 new electric vehicle charging points to every district of Kansas City. With more than $11 million in federal support, Kansas City will be able to work with partners to provide training for 1,300 residents supporting installation and maintenance long term.
• Providing students in our public schools with high-speed internet access and computers.
• Increasing the funding of Solarize KC with more than $18 million in Solar for All Funding. The goal is to install solar panels on 3,500 low-income single-family homes, continuing the Solarize KC bulk purchasing program for all homeowners and providing workforce training to residents.
  
  

Kansas City competed with cities nationwide to secure funding. These achievements resulted from the hard work and collaboration of our mayor’s office, President Biden and his appointees, Senator Blunt, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, our City Council, the dedicated staff at the city, and the residents of Kansas City. And we are not finished yet.

The Trump administration will have nearly $300 billion in infrastructure funding to distribute, and we are committed to bringing as much of that funding as possible to Kansas City. Every dollar earned will allow Kansas City to create well-paying jobs, improve the safety and smoothness of our roads and bridges, enhance our air quality and much more. We take pride in our hard work to make these vital programs a reality and look forward to collaborating with the new administration to continue delivering for the people of Kansas City.

This story was originally published January 19, 2025 at 5:02 AM.