Title
CIP Amendment for the Meridian Pedestrian Bridge over the Wichita-Valley Center Floodway at 63rd St. South (B462A) (District 2).
Body
Recommended Action: Approve the CIP Amendment.
The project was originally approved for 2016 and had been included in the Wichita Area Metropolitan Area Planning Organization (WAMPO) Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) for federal funding. The project was let by Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) in October of 2016 and the low bid greatly exceeded the available federal and local funding. Due to fiscal constraints at the time (fraud loss and sales tax fund balance issues), the project was withdrawn by the County and the federal funds were redistributed by WAMPO to other projects in the region.
Near the end of Q4 of FFY 2018, WAMPO identified over $4M in federal funds that have been de-obligated by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) during the year. Current KDOT policy is to take back the funds at the end of the year if the MPO cannot identify other regional projects that can obligate the funds by the end of September. In the same time frame, WAMPO had opened up a call for projects to be included in the 2019-2022 TIP. The County had submitted the Meridian Pedestrian Bridge for consideration for funding in 2021 or 2022 of the new TIP.
WAMPO staff was also working on an amendment to the current TIP that would pull several Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) projects into 2018 in the TIP to absorb the de-obligated funds. Wichita staff expressed some concern about executing all of these ITS projects in time for obligation in September. County, City and WAMPO staff discussed the option of substituting the Meridian Pedestrian Bridge for the majority of the ITS projects as the pedestrian bridge is completely designed, needs limited work to update permits and has no right of way or utility relocation issues. Based on the shovel readiness of the bridge, County policy body members requested that the MTP be amended...
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