Kansas highway officials still don't know when a key study on the environmental consequences of widening and possibly moving U.S. Highway 59 will be complete.
They also aren't certain the proposed project between Lawrence and Ottawa will survive state budget cuts. But they said Thursday that they believe it may have a better chance than other road projects.
Kansas Department of Transportation spokesman Marty Matthews said the agency still has not released a new timeline for completing the Environmental Impact Statement for the project. The EIS must be complete before necessary federal permits can be issued for construction to begin.
A draft EIS originally was scheduled for completion last June, but Matthews said road planners were taking more time with the study after hearing large amounts of public comment concerned with the two possible routes proposed for the new four-lane road.
"I think they are just making sure everything is correct, and when you have all the different groups involved in this, getting everybody happy is taking longer than expected," Matthews said.
Matthews said KDOT won't discuss specific issues delaying the process. But members of the public have raised several concerns. Among them: the number of houses an expanded U.S. 59 would take out and the damage to several endangered plant species a new route for the road would create.
The state is studying two options for the road. One would expand the existing highway between Ottawa and Lawrence to four lanes. The second option is to build an entirely new four-lane road one mile east of the present highway.
State budget shortfalls have some area leaders worried the project won't be funded by the Legislature once construction is otherwise ready to begin.
Ottawa city commissioners late last month agreed to write a letter urging KDOT to protect U.S. 59 from any budget cuts.
Matthews said KDOT leaders can't predict how much the Legislature may choose to cut from the agency's budget, but he said the U.S. 59 project likely wouldn't be among the first sacrifices.
"At the end of the session we expect we'll have to re-evaluate the entire comprehensive transportation program, and everything will be on the table," Matthews said. "But projects that are in the pipeline and are closer to being started would stand a better chance than those who are later down the line.
"So you can't say 59 is a shoe-in, but you can't really say it is at-risk either."
The governor has proposed eliminating $147 million from KDOT's budget during this next budget session, and he presented a list of projects that would suffer. U.S. 59 was not on the list.
But Matthews said KDOT may have to cut additional projects. The slowing economy has reduced state revenues to the point leaders now believe the state's comprehensive transportation program will have a $250 million deficit at the end of its 10-year lifespan.
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