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At least one Wyandotte County leader is starting to wonder what crossing the Kansas River by boat might look like.
One by one, several bridges connecting Kansas City, Kansas, to the rest of the metro have closed to traffic in the past few years, forcing commuters to take long and cumbersome roundabouts. And at least two bridges that residents and over-town visitors long relied on have no clear timeline — or financial path — toward repair.
In the latest abrupt closure, the Kansas Department of Transportation last week announced emergency repairs on the eastbound bridge of Interstate 70 at the Lewis and Clark Viaduct. Officials predict that thoroughfare from downtown Kansas City, Kansas, will be shuttered until at least the end of the year.
Waterway passages are only one source of frustration. In the more industrial parts of the city, overpasses provide an easy route to move above its massive railyards, often without a convenient alternative.
Those problems did not arrive overnight. Aging infrastructure in Wyandotte County, home to some of the most economically disadvantaged communities in the state, is a pronounced issue where bridges over the Kaw have clocked a full century.
And in the meantime, newer highways built out west still need maintenance, making it difficult to stay ahead on all the area infrastructure needs, said state Rep. Pam Curtis, a Wyandotte County Democrat.
It’s a pain Curtis feels, too. She uses the narrow James Street Bridge to cross through the East and West Bottoms on her way to Union Station. More than once, she said, she’s witnessed truck drivers hug road guards to get by.
“If the James Street Bridge goes down, we truly are landlocked. … Maybe they bring back the ferry, load the cars on and pull them across,” she said, jokingly.
“We’re at a crisis point, where we really do need help to get these bridges fixed,” she added.
The issue has the attention of Wyandotte County state lawmakers, neighborhood leaders and elected members of the Unified Government Board of Commissioners. Common worries expressed by those who spoke to The Star were the impacts on quality of life, local businesses and traffic safety.
Mayor Tyrone Garner’s office is assembling a delegation of commissioners and state lawmakers to seek solutions with help from the state and federal governments.
Garner, who frequently raises issues with the social and economic disparities between more prosperous communities out west and the disinvested and redlined neighborhoods in northeastern Kansas City, Kansas, told The Star on Monday the downtown is “choked off” from the rest of the metro in the wake of the latest closure.
While city and county infrastructure “crumbles,” he said it’s harder to deliver on his commitments to help bring a bigger tax base to the county, find property tax breaks and spur equitable economic development.
“And right now, the infrastructure is beyond crumbling east of (Interstate) 635. It’s scary for me, because it all comes down to money. And as you know, we don’t have any money,” he said.
Three of the downed major connectors are maintained by the Kansas Department of Transportation as part of the highway system. Outside of the Lewis and Clark Viaduct, the other two are the K-5 connecting to Fairfax on the northeastern end of the city and a portion of the Turner Diagonal Freeway in the southwest, both of which overpass railroad tracks.
A fourth — the 18th Street Bridge over the Kansas River — is scheduled to close early next year for a total rebuild. The project is expected to last two years and cost about $138 million. It will be paid for in large part through roughly $100 million in federal support .
Amanda DeVriese-Sebilla, neighborhood president for the Southwest Argentine Neighborhood, said she is also hearing concerns about Metropolitan Avenue’s bridge over Interstate 635. That project is expected to be completed in December.
And with the upcoming closure at 18th Street, she said, many in the neighborhood are wondering: How do we even get around?
“It’s definitely very frustrating for a lot of people,” said DeVriese-Sebilla, who is also executive director of the Argentine Betterment Corporation and sits on the Unified Government’s Parks & Recreation Board.
Responding to a question from The Star about local concerns, a KDOT spokeswoman said in an email the state agency recognizes the impact of closed river crossings. She said KDOT intends to work diligently on repairs at Lewis and Clark to “limit closure time and impacts to other projects and the local community.”
She added the state provides assistance for the local community through state programs as well as assistance to submit applications for federal funding.
Meanwhile, two other major river crossings, the Central Avenue and Kansas Avenue bridges, are integrated with Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, streetways and partially owned by the Unified Government. Each carries a price tag well above $100 million. Both closed to traffic — in 2021 and 2022, respectively — after engineering evaluations uncovered safety concerns.
Those projects will require major grant funding that Wyandotte County has yet to secure. County Administrator David Johnston described coming up with local matching funds needed to tap into the federal money — conservatively estimated around $10 million apiece — as a challenge in itself.
“Where do you get it? That’s the question,” Johnston said. “And how do you prioritize that with all the other demands that we’re faced with?”
Earlier this year, responding to residents’ concerns with steepening property tax bills, commissioners set a collection cap meant to provide some level of relief. It led to cuts in services and some capital programs.
In Kansas City, Kansas, nearly 44% of all the city’s property taxes collected are used to finance debt, Johnston said, saying a financially healthy community should not go above 20%. Much of the resources that should be available, he said, are “locked up.”
Johnston said state and federal money to fix infrastructure is limited, with plenty of other municipalities also seeking it.
“It’s never enough, and it’s highly competitive,” Johnston said.
“Infrastructure is here. It’s going to continue to age. It’s continued to provide us with challenges and with whatever resources that we have, we’ll do the best that we can to keep it up and make sure that it’s passing,” he added.
Communities faced with challenges on reroutes outside of downtown Kansas City, Kansas, bordering the river include Strawberry Hill, Argentine and Armourdale.
Commissioner Christian Ramirez, whose 3rd District includes Argentine, said moving around the community often requires crossing some bridge to get somewhere. He noted earlier warnings from public works about the aging stock of infrastructure over the coming decade.
“Over the years, the lack of proper funding of our infrastructure and maintenance has caused us to come to the point we are now where we have multiple bridges down,” Ramirez said. “We have streets that need to be repaved … we need to make sure moving forward, we need to fund it properly.”
Following the decision to cap property tax collections, a measure Ramirez has said he regrets supporting, the commissioner believes the road ahead toward maintenance will be a difficult one.
“It’s going to be a unique position we’re going to be in to try and find a way to properly fund our infrastructure projects and maintain what we already have,” he added.
Commissioner Bill Burns, whose 2nd District includes Central and Kansas Avenue bridges, hears frequently from his neighbors about those closures — and concerning traffic flow around the neighborhoods. And he’s heard from business owners seeing lower traffic at their storefronts.
“It’s just creating a lot of bottleneck. You know, these businesses, they’re trying their best anyway to make a living,” Burns said.
One of those business owners is Mike Pearce, of Slap’s BBQ on Central Avenue, two blocks west of the bridge.
Since that bridge went down, Pearce said customer traffic has suffered. Any potential impacts of the latest closure have yet to be felt, he said, but he worries the lunch rush of out-of-towners could drop further.
From his perspective, Pearce says running a restaurant today is getting costlier with everything from insurance to property tax bills. A slower flow of clientele is rough on his bottom line.
“We’re just getting shut down every corner,” Pearce said, adding: “To have the surface streets and the highways around us shut down, it just really takes the wind out of your sails.”
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