Freeway won’t be safer, coalition says

U.S. 59 should be rebuilt on current route, group's research says

The state’s efforts to build a freeway connecting Lawrence and Ottawa have little to do with improving safety on U.S. Highway 59, but instead are a larger plan to complete a damaging highway network in northeast Kansas, a group that opposes the project said Friday.

Members of the Franklin-Douglas Counties Coalition of Concerned Citizens met at the Douglas County Courthouse to unveil the results of two years of research into the state’s plans to rebuild U.S. 59 south of Lawrence.

Their conclusion: Building a $199 million freeway a mile east of the highway, or a $210 million freeway 300 feet east of the current alignment, actually would add to the highway’s accident problems.

And that’s on top of cutting through farms, demolishing homes, uprooting trees and displacing businesses.

“It’s a recipe for disaster,” said Caryn Goldberg, spokeswoman for the coalition that claims up to 400 members and backs U.S. 59 being rebuilt along its current alignment. “There are alternatives that would be safer, much more cost-efficient during a time of fiscal crisis in our state, and much faster and easier to enact.”

The group did not offer an estimate of the cost to upgrade the existing highway.

The coalition’s research has been delivered to the Kansas Department of Transportation, which is mulling public comments before selecting a route and design for the project.

State officials say that the 18-mile stretch of U.S. 59 has an accident rate 25 percent higher than those on similar highways elsewhere in Kansas. Building a freeway should cut the rate of fatality accidents by 80 percent, KDOT says, and trim the injury-accident rate by 60 percent.

But the coalition doesn’t buy it.

KDOT’s freeway plans would not improve safety for local traffic, coalition members said, but instead create a high-speed funnel into southern Lawrence that would escalate existing traffic problems and serve as inappropriate justification for efforts to complete the South Lawrence Trafficway.

“What’s south Lawrence going to look like? It’s not going to be a commercial area like it is now,” said Terry Shistar, who helped lead the coalition’s research team. “It’s going to be one big highway interchange.”

The state intends to select its route for the project by the end of the year.

Copies of the coalition’s research will be made available for public review at reference desks inside public libraries in Lawrence and Ottawa, Goldberg said.