“I agree absolutely with what he’s saying,” said Frank Weatherford. He believes there are at least a dozen projects in Kansas City that, if the money were here, could be paid back within three years. “Investment, private investment would come in, and it would look like the best bet you ever made,” said Weatherford.

“The biggest challenge that I think we
face,” said Bowers, “is trying to make certain that we’re looking down the road, planning for the future, not just putting out fires.”

Planning for the future is one thing. Paying for it is another. Dan Niec, district engineer for the Missouri Department of Transportation, sees as his organization’s biggest challenge the lack of funding for infrastructure, both from the federal government and from the state. The past five years, Missouri has averaged about a $1.2 billion construction and maintenance program statewide. Its projection for the next five years is in the $700 million range.

“We have focused solely on trying to maintain our system as part of our strategy moving forward,” said Niec, “and unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to complete the types of projects that I think a lot of people have become accustomed to.”

“I think the biggest threat to the transportation system here in Kansas City is simply lack of maintenance,” said Jim Harpool. “We’ve got a lot of infrastructure. It costs a ton of money, and to try to figure out how to maintain that is really a regional challenge.”

McIntyre provided some specifics. “We lack funding from the state level in Missouri for transit,” she conceded. “So we struggle at the local community level. It’s hard to do anything well.”

For the Port Authority too, said Collins, the biggest constraint “is obviously again the infrastructure needs and the cash that we would need to do those projects.”

One ongoing challenge that Matt McCoy, an executive with the Logistics Store, sees is for transportation entities to keep their technology up to date. “There are a lot of companies we’ve seen that have started as small businesses and physically have grown to where they’re big businesses now,” said McCoy, “but when you go in the back room, the technology really isn’t there to support the business they have now.”

Intermodals

Kansas City has been in the process of opening two major intermodal facilities, one, a Kansas City Southern project in the southeast part of the metro at the old Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base, and the other, a Burlington Northern Santa Fe project in the southwest part of the metro in Gardner, Kan.

Pat McGannon, president of Kessinger/Hunter & Company, believes that the intermodals are a great opportunity for Kansas City. “When we go around nationally to these meetings, people are always asking us about them,” he said. With Burlington Northern’s hold on east-west traffic and Kansas City Southern’s on north-south traffic, opportunity abounds. “It is going to be a big deal,” he said.

“There’s a tremendous opportunity here,” affirmed Michael Collins. “We’re looking at an additional 300-400 rail cars per day over the next 35 years.” Collins argued that with everyone buying over the internet these days, Kansas City’s centrality makes it an ideal jumping off point for shippers. He would, however, like to see more attention paid to the Missouri River. Seven million tons of cargo move down the Missouri every year. Kansas City—which accounts for none of that—is working to get its share of that action.

One result of the intermodal trend is the building of very large warehousing facilities. “We never used to see 800,000 square-foot buildings,” said McGannon. “But now we’re benefiting. The world has changed tremendously.”

David Warm sees huge potential for intermodal in greater Kansas City. “We have an opportunity to build not just warehouses,” Warm said, “but to become the center of global logistics intellect.” Accomplishing that, he argued, will take intense focus from the responsible parties over a sustained period of time.