Operation Green Light

The Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) works to improve infrastructure as part of their Operation Green Light (OGL) initiative. Their goal is to provide bands of easy travel between cities and across state lines by maintaining interconnected arterial streets. OGL’s efforts provide a seamless experience for drivers and pedestrians.

The OGL team is continually working with their local partners and compiling a list of the devices that need to be upgraded within the Kansas City metro area. They look for improvements that should be made as they perform work in each of these communities. Those are then ranked. They work to determine which improvements will provide the largest impact, while fitting into their budget. In addition to prioritizing changes, they also gather funding and look for matching dollars from local cities to complete an infrastructure project every few years.

The Affinis team, including subconsultants Olsson and Merge Midwest, was selected for OGL’s most recent infrastructure design project. Our team designed several controller upgrades, added cameras to select locations, and integrated detection for cars and pedestrians. We also designed plans to add two miles of fiber in Leawood, Kansas.

For this effort, we worked with several entities. The cities in Kansas include Kansas City, Lansing, Merriam, Mission, and Leawood. The cities in Missouri include Raymore, Belton, Independence, Kansas City, and North Kansas City. We also coordinated with the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) and the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT). Balancing each stakeholder’s standards and needs added complexity to this project.