Governor Laura Kelly announced that the U. S. Department of Transportation has awarded the Kansas Department of Transportation nearly $98 million infrastructure for Rebuilding America Grant to improve the I-35 and Santa Fe Street corridor in Olathe.
The I-35/ Santa Fe Forward Project, which targets one of the region’s most congested corridors, seeks to eliminate bottlenecks at two interchanges: Santa Fe Street and Old Highway 56, address access management issues on Santa Fe Street, replace aging infrastructure, and provide multimodal access across I-35 to connect communities on both sides of the interstate. Currently, the crash rate on I-35, surrounding the Santa Fe Interchange, is more than two and half times the state’s average, with nearly half of all crashes consisting of rear-end crashes at lower rates of speed.
The total cost of the project is $298 million . Ninety-eight million through the Federal Grant, Olathe is contributing $40 million and KDOT covering $140 million. Construction begins in late 2026.
