Kansas Department Of Transportation

Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) is a U.S. state government entity headquartered in Topeka, Kansas, that acts as the primary recipient of federal transportation grants from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Federal Transit Administration (FTA), and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). KDOT does not compete for federal contracts but administers more than ten thousand federal grant awards spanning highway infrastructure, bridge replacement, transit planning, traffic safety, and electric vehicle charging deployment across Kansas.

KDOT's grant portfolio is dominated by formula allocations under the Highway Planning and Construction program (CFDA 20.205), which funds pavement preservation, bridge replacement, multimodal transportation infrastructure, and safety improvements statewide. Representative recent work includes a $9.78 million Surface Transportation Block Grant (STBG) award for the Mission: Johnson Drive Rehabilitation project (pavement reconstruction, traffic signal replacement, pedestrian infrastructure), a $27.2 million STBG award for comprehensive Switzer Road reconstruction in Overland Park (new pavement, curb and gutter, bicycle lanes, roundabouts, and bridge replacement), and a $2.13 million Carbon Reduction Program cooperative agreement for the Junction City McFarland Roundabout project (roundabout construction, sidewalks, crosswalks, and storm sewer upgrades). KDOT also administers substantial bridge replacement programs across rural Kansas counties—dozens of awards ranging from $273 thousand to $2.37 million each for specific bridge structures—and deploys electric vehicle charging infrastructure through National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) formula grants, with projects at Casey's General Stores, Love's Travel Stops, and Pete's stores across the state valued between $548 thousand and $1.12 million per location.

Customer concentration is extreme and singular: the Federal Highway Administration accounts for 10,496 of KDOT's 10,813 awards across the source dataset. The NHTSA and FTA follow distantly with 146 and 106 awards respectively. Within FHWA funding, KDOT receives formula allocations across multiple programs—State, Planning and Research (SPR, CFDA 20.258); Surface Transportation Block Grant (STBG, CFDA 20.287); Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP, CFDA 20.272); Bridge Formula Program (CFDA 20.263); Bridge Investment Program (CFDA 20.264); Carbon Reduction Program (CFDA 20.265); Railway-Highway Crossings Program (CFDA 20.285); and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program (CMAQ, CFDA 20.268). NHTSA awards support occupant protection, impaired driving countermeasures, distracted driving awareness, motorcycle safety, traffic records system improvement, roadside death prevention, and driver/officer safety education programs, each arriving as formula grants under the National Priority Safety Programs (CFDA 20.616) and State and Community Highway Safety program (CFDA 20.600). The FTA contributes planning and formula grants for transit vehicle procurement and modernization under the Formula Grants for Rural Areas and Tribal Transit Program (CFDA 20.509) and Metropolitan Transportation Planning and State and Non-Metropolitan Planning and Research program (CFDA 20.505).

KDOT's activity trajectory shows decline: 333 awards in 2022, declining to 185 in 2025 and 69 year-to-date in 2026 (through mid-June). This reflects the typical pattern of annual formula grant allocations rather than discrete contract vehicles. Awards completing in the next twenty-four months total 183, representing annual recompete exposure as KDOT must reapply for or reprogram funds under statutory cycles. The source records combined potential value of $168 thousand across all awards—a statistical artifact of how formula grants are recorded—but obligated dollars total $12.85 billion, indicating KDOT's actual cash deployment at scale.

KDOT operates as a primary grant recipient across all work, with thirteen recorded sub-awards (fewer than 0.2% of the footprint) to sub-recipients including the Kansas Highway Patrol (work zone safety public awareness campaigns, motorist assistance programs), the Mid-America Regional Council (traffic management, regional air quality education, active transportation programs), county governments, and city governments including the Cities of Olathe, Wichita, and Shawnee. As a state transportation department, KDOT does not pursue set-aside categories; all awards are full-and-open formula allocations to the state. The agency's mission is multimodal infrastructure administration: highway preservation, bridge rehabilitation, transit coordination, traffic safety education, pedestrian and bicycle facility development, and planning support to metropolitan planning organizations and county transportation programs across Kansas.