Green Impact Zone and suburban bus big winners in TIGER stimulus grants
Kansas City’s TIGER award has been announced at $50 million, split between the Green Impact Zone and suburban transit. The GIZ money will go towards repaving streets, replacing traffic signals, and rebuilding ten miles of sidewalks and curbs.
The transit funding will towards improving links from the East Side to suburban office parks in the Northland and southwest suburbs. Money will be spent on things like bus stops, connecting sidewalks, lighting, etc. Sadly, no new service will come from this money. Most of the transit funding will go to future BRT corridors along State Avenue in KCK and the Metcalf/Shawnee corridor in Johnson County, even though neither county has a plan to pay for operating BRT.
Projects that didn’t get funded include a Downtown streetcar circulator, a comprehensive bicycle/pedestrian program, a freight rail project, and an expansion of Front Street.
