The scary, money-sucking 12th Street bridge still isn’t fixed

So a friend and I are driving into town from up north the other day, and it’s one of those days when the city looks particularly run-down. My friend’s a little cranky about this because, after all, it’s depressing. Going south on I-35 around the bluffs, she looks out toward the West Bottoms and says, “What’s going on with the 12th Street bridge, anyway?” The viaduct looks as crumbly and dangerous as always.

For some reason, my friends think I’m supposed to know what’s going on around the city. “They’ve been saying they’re going to fix it for decades,” I offer.

“Cleaver should have fixed it,” she says.

Cleaver’s last year as mayor was 1999. He did try to fix it — and, as it turns out, so did Kay Barnes. So why was it sad — but not surprising — to find that the 12th Street Viaduct is now on Kansas City’s most-recent wish list for federal economic stimulus money? Shouldn’t we have taken care of it a long time ago?