INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County, including Independence. Share your story idea with Tod.
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After years of fruitless conversation among city and county governments, there may soon be a path forward to fix a Jackson County bridge that’s been closed for more than seven years.
Kansas City’s Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee is scheduled to consider Ordinance No. 260900 at its Tuesday meeting.
The ordinance, which the city’s Planning and Development recommends approving with conditions, would deannex, or detach, Kansas City from 0.63 acres, including the north half of a stretch of Kentucky Road that includes a bridge over Rock Creek.
RELATED | Closed bridges impact emergency-response times, inconvenience drivers, attract dumping
The bridge, which has a hole in the deck and was deemed dangerous, was closed in 2019 and now attracts dumping and vagrancy.
Independence, where residents passed a property-tax hike for infrastructure needs in April 2025, authorized design work a year ago to replace the bridge, which provides access to the city’s largest sanitary sewer pump station without the risk of getting stopped by a train.
Tracks running south along Kentucky Road often block access from US 24 in western Independence.
“Efforts to apply for interjurisdictional cooperative agreements to fund the repair of the bridge have been challenging,” according to a KCMO City Plan Commission Staff Report. “Both municipalities agreed that a transfer of the entire right-of-way will speed up the process of obtaining funds to fix this bridge.”
Kansas City originally annexed the property in 1954.
The two conditions attached to the KCMO Plan Commission, which weighed in on the project at the Aug. 6 meeting, require Independence to annex the property within 60 days and continue to allow KCMO Water Services an easement for a 12-inch water main in the area.
The Independence City Council is expected to discuss annexing the property at its Nov. 2 meeting.
Independence kicked off a new bridges, roads and sidewalk repair program in October 2025 with money from the general obligation bond, and some projects are already complete.
Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver II secured $1.2 million in federal funding to help replace the bridge.
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