Keith Browning doesn’t want to make the drive to school any longer even if it adds another year to an anticipated $3.4 million bridge project.

Browning, Douglas County’s public works director, is asking state highway officials to plan for replacing the concrete surface of the Kansas River bridge at Lecompton, likely in 2007.

Douglas County commissioners unanimously endorsed Browning’s request Wednesday night.

The project would replace the 32-year-old bridge’s original concrete deck, an 8-inch-thick surface that is beginning to show its age through cracks, potholes and other maintenance problems.

For a bridge that carries about 4,300 vehicles daily including buses for Lecompton students attending Perry-Lecompton High School and is a major traffic link along Douglas County Route 1029, the work would add decades to the span’s life.

And Browning would seek to keep one lane of traffic open during construction, even if that meant turning a potential one-year project into two.

“If the bridge is completely closed down, then they would have to go to Topeka or Lawrence (to cross the river) to go to school,” Browning said. “I think that’s a pretty big inconvenience.”

Browning will send the project application to the Kansas Department of Transportation for consideration. The state typically covers 80 percent of the construction budget for such projects, many of which are intended to improve traffic safety.

Browning also intends to ask Jefferson County officials to share in the local costs of the project.

In other action Wednesday, commissioners:

Scheduled times to allow water skiing at Lone Star Lake, from May 27, which is Memorial Day, through Sept. 21. Specific dates and times vary depending on the time of season.

Approved a conditional-use permit that allows Mobile Enviro-Wash to park five vehicles inside a building on agricultural land at 602 E. 1250 Road, as requested by Michael Flory.