By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
The city of Hays is among 23 Kansas towns selected for grants from the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) for projects to improve intersections and roads.
Norton, Colby and Phillipsburg will also receive KDOT grants.
KDOT’s City Connecting Link Improvement Program (CCLIP) funds improvements to state highways that extend through cities.
John Braun, project manager for the city of Hays, says the Hays award of $1 million will be used for reconstruction of south Vine Street/Highway 183 in state fiscal year 2021 – a $4 million dollar project.
“This will start south of 13th Street – about where McDonald’s is – south through the intersection with the Highway 40 Bypass.
“It will also involve adding pedestrian crossings at 8th and Vine.”
The city applied for the grant in March, according to Braun.
“The pavement is starting to get really bad. We did a concrete patch 15 to 18 years ago. After consulting with engineers and with KDOT about doing a patch again, we decided it would be money better spent to completely replace the pavement,” Braun said.
The city of Hays will provide $3 million in matching funds for the grant, which is in the Capitol Improvement Projects portion of the city’s budget.
The work will be a KDOT project.
“It would be coordinated with KDOT with a KDOT bid letting in Topeka and they would manage the project,” Braun explained. “We would get it designed and then basically turn it over to them, paying our share up front.”
The cities will receive a combined total of approximately $18 million in funding under the CCLIP for the 23 projects. The total includes $7 million in state fiscal year 2021 and $11 million in state fiscal year 2022.
“KDOT was able to add $5 million into the CCLIP because of the additional $50 million that the governor provided as a one-time transfer from the State General Fund,” said Deputy Secretary Lindsey Douglas in a Tuesday news release. “Communities then provided an additional $6.5 million in matching funds to create a total of $11.5 million beyond the initial plan to expand the amount invested in various projects.”
Under the CCLIP, a city is required to contribute up to 25 percent of the project cost based on its population, though some cities contribute significantly more. Cities under 2,500 in population aren’t required to provide a match. Projects in this program may fall into one of three different categories including Surface Preservation (SP), Pavement Restoration (PR) or Geometric Improvement (GI).
SP projects involve maintenance work such as resurfacing and are funded up to $300,000 per project. PR projects typically involve full-depth pavement replacement without changes to the overall geometric characteristics and may also address drainage issues. GI projects address geometric issues such as adding turn lanes, improving intersections or modifying the lane configuration to address capacity. The PR and GI categories are funded up to $1 million per project.
For the state fiscal year 2021, the city, category and amount awarded include:
Concordia Pavement Restoration $1,000,000
Gardner Pavement Restoration $1,000,000
Hays Pavement Restoration $1,000,000
Independence Pavement Restoration $1,000,000
Norton Geometric Improvement $1,000,000
Pratt Pavement Restoration $1,000,000
Winfield Pavement Restoration $1,000,000
For the state fiscal year 2022, the city, category and amount awarded include:
Cimarron Pavement Restoration $800,000
Colby Surface Preservation $300,000
Dodge City Geometric Improvement $1,000,000
Ellsworth Geometric Improvement $600,000
Emporia Geometric Improvement $600,000
Garden City Pavement Restoration $1,000,000
Gardner Pavement Restoration $1,000,000
Garnett Pavement Restoration $1,000,000
Herington Surface Preservation $300,000
Lyons Surface Preservation $300,000
McLouth Pavement Restoration $500,000
McPherson Geometric Improvement $1,000,000
Minneola Geometric Improvement $1,000,000
Newton Surface Preservation $300,000
Phillipsburg Pavement Restoration $1,000,000
Yates Center Surface Preservation $300,000