Locals Weigh In On Highway Projects At KDOT Meeting

Local officials and citizens weighed in Monday on projects they would like to see the Kansas Department of Transportation perform preliminary engineering work on in the southwest district, when funding becomes available.

While money for the projects isn’t available, Jeffrey Younger, deputy secretary and transportation engineer, said it’s important to get future projects in the “pipeline” so that preliminary engineering work can be done on them.

Projects in the southwest district discussed on Monday were those that rose to the top during the selection process in the 2010 and 2012 consultations, but did not get selected for construction or preliminary engineering work. Those projects include: expansion of U.S. Highway 50 from Kearny County to Cimarron; expansion of U.S. Highway 54 from the Cimarron River Bridge to Kiowa County; addition of passing lanes on U.S. Highway 83 from the Oklahoma state line to Kansas Highway 4; Kansas Highway 156 modernization from Jetmore to Hanston; and two-lane reconstruction of Kansas Highway 34 in Clark County.

After gathering input from local officials and residents, the K156 project rose to the top as one of the higher priority projects, due to safety concerns.

With the increase in Kansas truck traffic hauling grain, dairy and livestock, as well as wind turbines, the importance of expanding U.S. 50, U.S. 54 and U.S. 83 were deemed as being important projects.
Herrick said because of the safety concerns associated with K156, it will likely be higher on the list.

Mike King, secretary of transportation, described “today’s discussions as tomorrow’s initiatives.”