Kansas received a passing grade for its highways earlier this week when the state’s chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers released its latest “infrastructure report card.” However, the engineers also warned that sweeping cuts to Kansas Department of Transportation funding are still causing roadways to suffer. Kansas earned a C on the report card, which ranks the quality of state infrastructure in nine categories, such as bridges, roads, energy and drinking water. This is up from a C- in 2013, the last time the Kansas ASCE chapter released a report card. And while some areas, such as levees and bridges, increased in quality roads went down. Over several years, lawmakers have diverted more than $2 billion from KDOT to fill deep holes in the Kansas budget. The cuts dipped into funds for T-WORKS — a 10-year, $8 billion program for projects to preserve and update highway infrastructure across the state. The state has been addressing its backlog of projects. As of now, 23
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