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The Kansas City Business Journal printed an article last week about the Johnson County Gateway Interchange Study. Click on the link to read the article.

A new transportation program is good news for the Johnson County Gateway Interchange Study and for transportation in Kansas. Today’s blog is an excerpt from an e-mail from the KDOT Secretary of Transportation, Deb Miller.

Today, I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that Kansas has a new transportation program: T-WORKS.

The program is built upon two bills (HB 2360 and HB 2650) and both bills have passed the Legislature and have been sent to Governor Mark Parkinson for signature. These two bills provide the funding and the framework for a new transportation program called T-WORKS. Governor Parkinson is supportive of a new transportation program and it is anticipated he will sign both bills.
T-WORKS will provide about $8.2 billion in construction and modal spending over the next 10 years. By comparison, it would take $11 billion to replicate the CTP. T-WORKS is smaller and, I believe, appropriate for our times. It allows the state’s highways to be kept in good condition, provides needed safety improvements, and allows the state to invest strategically in economic opportunities. Just as importantly, it will create or sustain an estimated 60,000 construction jobs and 175,000 total jobs (including suppliers, construction, etc).
While T-WORKS builds on the past success of the CHP and CTP, you will also see new approaches to transportation under this program. From business model changes such as using economic analysis and local consultation when selecting projects to using practical improvement approaches to stretch dollars further, there’s a deep commitment at KDOT to deliver the best set of projects within a given budget in a collaborative and flexible way. We simply can’t wait to get started on T-WORKS! For more information about T-WORKS, click here.

The Johnson County Gateway Study area is identified as the area bound by 95th Street, Quivira Road, College Boulevard and Renner Boulevard. This approximately 6 square mile area has some fairly significant development which could be impacted by potential modifications to the access to the freeway system. We have determined that generally within this area (some of the data tracts do not exactly follow those boundaries) there is the following:
• Approximately 1,280 businesses with 30,400 jobs.
• Approximately 4,967 households with 11,630 residents living in those households.
• Approximate tax revenue = $250 Million per year. This tax revenue includes an estimate of federal and state income taxes for all employees in the areas plus the property tax. This estimate of taxes paid does not include sales tax paid by employees, sales tax collected by businesses, personal properly tax, income tax paid by the business or income tax paid by the residents that live in the area.

Improving transportation on the highways in and through this area is critical to the local, regional and state economy.

Sources for information above include:
Business data
Source: Business data provided by InfoUSA, Omaha NE Copyright 2009, all rights reserved. ESRI forecasts for 2009.

Household and Residential Data
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000 Census of Population and Housing. ESRI forecasts for 2009.

Tax Revenue Estimates
Source: City of Lenexa