History of S.P.I.R.I.T.
The seed was planted for the Southwest Passage Initiative for Regional and Interstate Transportation at Kansas Senate Transportation Committee meeting in Liberal, Kansas on October, 25th, 1995. At that meeting a local group known as Liberal Highways Inc. presented the idea of promoting the US-54 Corridor from Wichita to El Paso as a four lane, divided trade corridor.
The idea, whose time had come, was enthusiastically received by the Transportation Committee. The name “SPIRIT” and our organization were developed and rapidly became a four state coalition.
The first SPIRIT membership meeting was held on March 1st, 1996 in Greensburg, KS with over 100 people attending. Since that time we have held over 100 membership, legislative, and Department of Transportation meetings, many board meetings, and thousands of pieces of mail have been generated.
In the first thirteen years of existence as SPIRIT:
- Most of the cities, counties, and Chambers of Commerce from Wichita to El Paso have passed resolutions in support of a four-lane US-54 along the entire corridor. We have also had representatives from Mexico at our meetings. We are now a four-state and two-nation advocacy group.
- The state of Oklahoma enacted a comprehensive transportation bill in 1997 that funded four-lane construction on US-54 on most of the 60 miles through the Oklahoma Panhandle.
- The Texas Department of Transportation has prepared four-lane plans for the 90 miles through the Texas Panhandle and has recently added this segment to their high priority, four-lane trunk line system, with construction projected for the near future.
- New Mexico has constructed four lanes from the Texas state line to Alamogordo, improving the road from Santa Rosa to Tularosa and named the Tucumcari to Texas state line as #2 in priority for four-lane construction. Governor Richardson has included a 160 mile segment of US-54 from Carrizozo to Santa Rosa in his new state-wide highway improvement program (GRIP).
- The Kansas Legislature passed the largest transportation bill in it’s history in 1999: a $13.2 billion, 10 year program which funds some four lane construction, acquisition, and design concept study from the Oklahoma state line to Wichita.
- In 2005, US-54 from Wichita to El Paso was designated “SPIRIT High Priority Corridor” on the national highway system.
- The Kansas Department of Transportation and the Kansas legislators in Washington have been successful in three out of three grant attempts and demonstration projects for increased capacity on US-54 from Kingman to the Oklahoma State line southwest of Liberal.