Economic Impact

Stakeholders wanted to use transportation to attract and sustain economic development. A key issue that needed to be addresses in Phase 2 was how Kansas could best leverage limited transportation funds to create significant economic benefits.
Economic Impact group members
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The Economic Impact Topical Working Group (TWG) reviewed many cross-cutting issues, but its main goal is summarized below:

Leveraging Limited Transportation Dollars to Benefit the State’s Economy
The Economic Impact group’s primary charge was to examine how KDOT’s transportation programs have supported economic development in the past and to develop options for how to leverage future transportation funds to benefit the state’s economy. To that end, this group was asked to comment on future program configurations and various investment scenarios. They also reviewed and commented on other approaches to link transportation and the Kansas economy, including using economic input as a criteria to select and program projects, enhancing economic development set-aside programs and cultivating better relationships with the Kansas business community. Input from this group was forwarded to the Funding and Finance TWG for consideration in refining the program configuration options and investment scenarios and to the Policy and Technical Committees for additional review.

Statewide and Regional Approaches
This group also examined how other states work at the state and regional levels to address transportation and economic development opportunities. The input was forwarded to the Policy Committee for consideration.