<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/2/1581949850709.jpeg" alt=" U.S. 69 in Overland Park at dawn, as traffic quickly fills up a highway that clogs nearly every rush hour. Scott Canon / Kansas News Service" />
 <figcaption> U.S. 69 in Overland Park at dawn, as traffic quickly fills up a highway that clogs nearly every rush hour. Scott Canon / Kansas News Service</figcaption>
 </figure>By JIM MCLEAN, <a href="https://www.kcur.org/post/kansas-gov-kelly-says-her-highway-plan-restores-states-roads-without-tax-hike#stream/0">Kansas News Service</a>TOPEKA — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s transportation plan isn’t as bold as those that came before it.Since
 the 1990s, Kansas has spent tens of billions of dollars on three 
successive 10-year programs. Each required a tax increase and launched 
with a commitment to complete a long list of new building projects.But
 Kelly, a Democrat who won election on a promise to restore the state’s 
finances, isn’t proposing a bunch of new projects. And she isn’t seeking
 a tax increase to help pay for her plan.Instead, she’s pledging
 to stop taking money from the Kansas Department of Transportation — and
 asking lawmakers to do the same — so that the agency can rebuild roads 
and bridges suffering from years of lax maintenance. She’s also 
promising to complete all but one of the 21 projects abandoned during a 
budget crisis that followed tax cuts passed under Republican Sam 
Brownback when he was governor.Half of the $10 billion Kelly proposes spending over the next 10 years is earmarked for maintenance work.“We
 must close the ‘Bank of KDOT’ and make sure that funding for 
transportation is spent on transportation,” Kelly said last when 
announcing the program.That means no more raids on the pool of money earmarked for transportation.Those
 raids were commonplace during the Brownback administration. With tax 
revenues plummeting, Brownback and lawmakers diverted about $2 billion 
to plug gaping holes in the state budget.Kelly has slowed the transfers and pledged to end them by 2023.<h2>Limited money for big projects</h2>Breaking
 with precedent, Kelly isn’t committing to a set list of highway 
projects. Instead, said KDOT Secretary Julie Lorenz, a handful of 
projects will be selected every two years based on what the agency 
concludes are the most urgent needs.Doing that, she said, will 
give the agency the flexibility it needs to respond to emerging issues 
and “make good investments that stand the test of time.”At the 
moment, Lorenz said, nothing is more urgent than expanding a section of 
U.S. 69 that cuts through the Johnson County community of Overland Park.
 It’s the busiest stretch of four-lane highway in the state. More than 
80,000 daily commuters regularly transform it into a virtual parking lot
 during the morning and evening rush hours.“In terms of 
congestion on a four-lane highway, it’s the worst in the state,” Lorenz 
said. “It gets a grade of ‘F’ today and it gets worse in the future if 
we don’t do something about it.”Engineering a solution isn’t a problem, finding a way to pay for it is, said Carl Gerlach, the mayor of Overland Park.Adding
 express lanes that motorists would have to pay to use is likely the 
only way to get the proposed $300 million project done quickly, he said.“If
 we don’t do something unique and different like tolling, we may have to
 wait ten,13,14 years before we get U.S. 69 expanded,” Gerlach said. 
“Can we do that? I don’t think so.”The express lanes would 
likely be built in between the existing northbound and southbound lanes.
 Drivers would use electronic gadgets like those that automatically 
record their tolls on the Kansas Turnpike.Express lanes have a 
mixed record. Still, research done by the Institute of Transportation 
Studies at the University of California-Los Angeles found that toll 
lanes can be a cost-effective way to reduce traffic congestion. They’re 
more effective than simply adding more “free” lanes to existing roads or
 expanding mass transit.“Pricing reduces congestion,” ITS researchers said in a <a href="http://www.its.ucla.edu/for-the-press/traffic-congestion/" target="_blank">recent report</a>. “Nothing else does.”Under Kansas law, you can’t charge tolls on existing highways. Just new ones.To
 add express lanes on U.S. 69, state and local officials would have to 
produce a study that they would both ease congestion and partially pay 
for themselves.Lorenz thinks the project can be finished more 
quickly by putting it on a regulatory and logistical fast-track. So, she
 wants to start construction while engineers are still working on the 
design, rather than waiting until all the blueprints get drafted and 
approved.KDOT used that process for the first time on a massive 
interchange in Johnson County finished in 2017. It connects Interstates 
35 and 435 with Kansas 10.“We shaved a year off that schedule and we got 12% more project … for the dollars,” she said.Using the faster process to deliver the U.S. 69 project, Lorenz said, would save more than money.“For every year that we delay in building your project, folks sit in traffic five million hours,” she said.<h2>Balancing urban and rural needs</h2>While
 many of the state’s most pressing transportation needs are in urban and
 suburban centers, Lorenz said there’s also money in the plan for road 
projects in rural Kansas. But, she said, not enough to satisfy the 
desire for four-lane highways everywhere local officials are clamoring 
for them.Southwest Kansas is a case in point. Residents there 
say heavy truck traffic to massive meatpacking facilities in Garden 
City, Dodge City and Liberal have made existing roads unsafe.“If
 you travel on Highway 83, you … would not believe all the trucks,” said
 Beth Tedrow, a Garden City Community College trustee, at a <a href="https://www.kmuw.org/post/rural-kansans-ask-lawmakers-fix-slow-internet-bad-highways-are-holding-them-back" target="_blank">meeting with state lawmakers</a> from the region just prior to the state of the 2020 legislative session.Officials
 in the region can make a case for a four-lane highway, Lorenz said, but
 the state simply doesn’t have the money to build one unless communities
 in the region can cover a substantial portion of the cost.“So, I’m working hard to sell passing lanes,” Lorenz said.In addition to being cheaper to build and maintain, she said, passing lanes “provide an enormous safety benefit.”A
 recent KDOT study that evaluated the effectiveness of the passing lanes
 along a section of U.S. 400 in southeast Kansas showed they reduced 
crashes by 32%.If a community that wants a four-lane is willing 
to accept passing lanes as an intermediate step, that increases the 
chances for state funding, Lorenz said.“We will give them bonus points, if you will, additional consideration,” she said.Jim
 McLean is the senior correspondent for the Kansas News Service is a 
collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public 
Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their 
connection to public policy. You can reach him on Twitter&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/jmcleanks" target="_blank">@jmcleanks</a>&nbsp;or email jim@kcur.org.

Kansas gov. says her plan restores state's roads without a tax hike