Ever drive over a small, black hose on the highway and wonder why it was there?

Chances are, it was connected to a device that counted your axles as you passed, enabling the Kansas Department of Transportation to monitor how many vehicles traverse Kansas highways.

The results, tallied anew each fiscal year, determine how much money from state fuel taxes goes back to local governments and help transportation planners predict when a road will need to be expanded.

In the past decade, the number of motorists on commuter routes leading to and from Lawrence has grown exponentially, almost doubling in the case of Kansas Highway 10 east of town.

And though a corridor study conducted by KDOT and the Kansas Turnpike Authority a few years back recommended that K-10 be expanded from four to six lanes, it’s likely another 10 years will pass before that becomes feasible.

“The state Legislature passed a 10-year transportation program in 1999, and funding for expansion of K-10 wasn’t included,” said Alan Spicer, traffic and field operations engineer for KDOT. “So, it would have to be after 2010.”

The good news is that, despite the upward trend, the numbers slipped in 2001.

The bad news: That slip likely was just an aberration caused, in part, by gas prices, said Terry Barnes, KDOT traffic counting coordinator.

Even highway improvement projects targeted in the Comprehensive Transportation Plan to receive state dollars in the next 10 years could be postponed by the time lawmakers this session settle on budget cuts to ease the ailing economy.

“Right now what’s happening is that the adjustments that are being made to the transportation plan are negative,” KDOT spokesman Marty Matthews said.

Bea Dewing, a Lawrence resident who commutes on K-10, said she doesn’t notice traffic bottlenecking until she hits Interstate 435.

“I don’t think we need to expand that road,” she said. “I think we need to give people some different way to get to work.”

She’s specifically interested in a proposed commuter rail line that would pass through Lawrence on its way to Kansas City from Topeka. A study to determine the feasibility of such a line should be complete by early April.

But with growth on a steady upward track, even a commuter rail line might not get enough vehicles off K-10 to leave it at four lanes, Matthews said.

“They talk about levels of service. That goes from an A to a B to a C to a D, and that’s essentially gridlock,” Matthews said. “That level of service goes down, and it’s not just a convenience issue … there are other issues: safety, people getting stuck, and if there is an