Centurions February Task Force: Infrastructure and Sustainability
Feb 21, 2020
Co-Chairs: David Kim and Terry Harlow
Committee Members: Evan Fox, Adrienne Struble, Mary Claire Gustafson, Amanda Yoder and Quint Hall
Goal: Explore the role of infrastructure and sustainability in achieving a successful future for the greater Kansas City area and its citizens. The task force will dive into the impact and challenges of infrastructure and sustainability on today’s Kansas City and the opportunities and momentum for the future.
Session One: Hyperloop
Lessons Learned:
- Missouri leaders want to run a 250-mile hyperloop route that would link Kansas City to St. Louis in a 30-minute trip along Interstate 70.
- The hyperloop works by electronically shooting a pod through a depressurized tube. Magnets line the tube and levitate the pod like an air hockey puck. The lack of air or friction allows it to reach an incredible speed quickly and sustain it with minimal energy.
- Kansas City is in the running to build a 12-15-mile test track that would position the city to be the potential epicenter for future expansion.
- The cost to take a hyperloop from St. Louis to Kansas City would be lower than the cost of gas to drive, while still cutting down the time by three hours, to 28 minutes.
- Travel time savings equate up to $410 million per year.
- A commercially feasible Hyperloop that is approved for passenger travel in more than a decade from reality.
Aaron Atterbery speaks about Hyperloop in Missouri
Session Two: Smart City
Lessons Learned:
- A Smart city is an urban area that uses different types of electronic Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to collect data and then use insights gained from that data to manage assets, resources and services efficiently.
- Smart cities use intelligent solutions to optimize infrastructure and smart and responsive governance to engage citizens in the management of their city.
- A system of sensors, networks, and applications collect useful data, like traffic congestion, energy use, and CO2 levels.
- Everything from road traffic to municipal services could be more efficiently managed, and environmental issues from noise levels to air pollution improved with a smart city approach.
- The more connected devices a smart city employs, the greater the risk to individual privacy.
- Citizens have legitimate concerns that data shared to access smart city services could be compromised in the event of a network breach.
- Smart city initiatives must embed cybersecurity into the very heart of their projects.
- Successful smart cities are a partnership between government (at all levels), private companies and citizens.
- Smart City technology can help improve public safety and reduce response times for first responders.
Ashley Hand speaks about Smart Cities and the expansion of IOT
Session Three: 1 Million Project
Lessons Learned:
- 70% of America’s school teachers assign homework to be completed online, but more than 5 million families with school-aged children do not have reliable internet connectivity at home.
- This disconnect leads to dramatically inequitable outcomes among our students. This isn’t fair. It isn’t right. And it doesn’t need to happen.
- This program is available to in almost every school district in the Kansas City area, including KCMO and KCK.
- The 1 Million project will expand to the 10M project with the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint.
Debbie Ballard speaks about the 1 Million Project
Session Four: The 5G Experience
Corey Hanson speaks about Sprint 5G
Lessons Learned:
- The future of wireless communication and city infrastructure will be driven by the availability and delivery of high-speed data.
- A connected city provides infrastructure to assist first responders and drastically reduce emergency response times.
- Wireless service will not be delivered using the current unsightly towers found throughout today’s cities; it will rely on small, out of sight repeaters.
Session Five: Urban Acupuncture
Lessons Learned:
- Kansas City’s infrastructure and treatment systems were built as early as 1863, and many through the early 1900s.
- Sewer system covers more than 300 square miles and contains more than 2,800 miles of pipe
- After years of citizen complaints, and a decade after EPA’s compliance initiative began, EPA alleged many violations by the City of Kansas City
- In October 2010, Kansas City entered a Consent Decree requiring it to implement overflow control measures, use green infrastructure, pay a $600K penalty and spend at least $1.6M on SEPs. The total cost expected to be over $4.5B.
- By 2017, Kansas City had made many improvements, including improving infrastructure and completing several greenspace initiatives.
- To overcome blight and disinvestment in the marginalized sections of Kansas City, we need to be designing regenerative infrastructure systems and to achieve this goal we must:
- Develop a more holistic approach focused on transit-oriented development projects that utilize a strong community-based planning and design approach.
- Lobby for change in the overall capital projects planning & decision-making process at City Hall.
- Facilitate and prioritize community-based planning, design & implementation for local development initiatives that encourage green infrastructure systems.
- Focus on leveraging resources with local, state, federal & philanthropic funding mechanisms. Public realm investments in green infrastructure will transform the pedestrian experience within our City.
Brittany Barrientos talks about the legal component of the environmental challenges facing the KCMO sewer system.
Tim Dugan shares potential sustainable solutions for the KCMO sewer system.
Session Six: Understanding the Infrastructure problem
Lessons Learned:
- Between 1850 and 1950, Kansas City grew from a small village on the Missouri River to a full-fledged city of nearly 500,000 people within just 81 square miles. Today, post automobile, Kansas City is nearly four times as large at 319 square miles, yet the city’s population has hardly changed.
- Today, Kansas City has over 6,500 linear miles of roads and limited budget to improve them. Each resident is responsible for maintaining four times as much city infrastructure compared to 1950.
- It would take about $125 million a year of the city’s budget to keep roads at a passable level. The city’s current budget for road improvement is about $24 million.
- City’s should function as a farmer would – and figure out the best use of all its properties. This includes:
- Creating a tax policy that provides incentives to develop what is best for the city.
- Creating a tax system where the city charges property tax based on how much infrastructure upkeep is required to maintain the property.
- Citizens who want to live in larger lots in suburban areas should be willing to pay more for the increased upkeep
- The biggest roadblock to addressing the infrastructure problem is getting past people's discomfort with change and things that are different from what they’re accustomed.
Dennis Strait talks about infrastructure and maintenance