Kansas Secretary of Transportation Mike King joined local officials and area legislators in Liberal Tuesday (April 19) afternoon to mark the start of a T-WORKS expansion project that will build 3-½ miles of four-lane expressway on U.S. 54 and improve access to the Arkalon Energy Plant east of Liberal.

Dirt work is underway on the $14.6 million project. Michels Corporation of Madison, Wisconsin is the primary contractor. Most of the work will be done off of the current highway alignment and will have little impact on traffic on U.S. 54. The Kansas DOT expects the project to be completed in June 2017.

This segment begins southwest of Seward County Road O and continues to near Seward County Road R (Park Road) and is the middle portion of three projects that will eventually provide a four-lane expressway from Seward County Road 6 (Tucker Road) to and across the Cimarron River, including building a second bridge over the Cimarron. The other two projects are scheduled to be let to contract in 2018.

If you have questions on this project, you can call Greg Adams, Construction Engineer, at 620-624-4451 or Kirk Hutchinson, KDOT Southwest Public Affairs Manager, at 1-877-550-5368 (toll free).

You can stay aware of all road construction projects across Kansas at www.kandrive.org or by calling 5-1-1. To learn more about this and other T-WORKS projects, visit www.ksdot.org/tworks .