A traffic light is the bone of contention.

More specifically, it’s the absence of a traffic light on Kansas Highway 10 at the entrance to East Hills Business Park that seems to be the public’s lone hang-up with long-awaited suggestions by city-county planning staff for how to move traffic more quickly and safely along the congested stretch of 23rd Street between Iowa Street and Noria Road.

Planning staff on Wednesday presented the final recommendations from its 23rd Street corridor study to about 45 members of the public. The final draft has taken shape with input gleaned from several public meetings and focus groups since the study began in 1999.

The proposed solutions include constructing raised medians with turn lanes at intersections with signals, consolidating or eliminating driveways and curb cuts and adding dual left-turn lanes at the intersection of 23rd and Iowa streets.

But the only improvements that got any real attention at Wednesday’s meeting were the ones proposed for the section between Harper Street and Noria Road, where officials suggest possibly closing off the median at the entrance to the business park and constructing an interchange at Franklin Road with a new frontage road that would provide access to the park.

They’re expensive projects that business owners claim could be avoided if the city would foot the bill to install a traffic signal.

“Since 1991, at East Hills Business Park, we’ve been trying to get a stop light,” said Joe Takacs of Kinedyne Corp. “For $1.2 million, you could put in a stop light.”

“I would urge you to take the simple solution to slow traffic down,” added Bo Harris of Harris Construction. “Put in a signalization.”

But planners said the Kansas Department of Transportation had found that traffic signals had not been effective in similar situations. The city must provide recommendations that KDOT might actually choose to fund, said Linda Finger, city-county planning director.

Another funding wrinkle makes it important to proceed with 23rd Street study recommendations in a timely manner: If plans for the eastern portion of the South Lawrence Trafficway were completed before funds for 23rd Street/K-10 projects were secured, Lawrence wouldn’t be eligible for KDOT funds because the section of highway in question would become a county road.

Planning staff members will present their recommendations to the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission at its Aug. 28 meeting. The proposals would then go before the city and county commissions later this fall.

A copy of the study recommendations can be viewed online at www.lawrenceplanning.org/transportation/trancor.html.