A road whose traffic has ballooned since opening of the South Lawrence Trafficway must wait for reconstruction or relocation, as Douglas County commissioners study how the road fits into the community’s growth.

Commissioners agreed Monday to put off decisions about extending Kasold Drive to the south, from 31st Street to the trafficway.

The project has been on the county’s drawing board since 1998, and commissioners already have set aside $2.4 million for construction next year.

But Monday morning, commissioners postponed making a decision after discussing two options:

l Repave and widen a bridge along East 1200 Road, for an estimated $300,000 to $1 million.

l Build a new road to the west, with a larger bridge and extension across the trafficway to the bridge across the Wakarusa River at East 1150 Road, for an estimated $5.5 million.

Instead of choosing one, commissioners opted to meet again within the next few months to talk about the county’s overall roads network, and how the county’s development pattern would be affected.

Extending Kasold may offer an attractive short-term fix by turning a gravel road into a smooth paved surface, Commissioner Bob Johnson said, but that didn’t mean it would be certain to pay off down the road.

“I’m not much in favor of throwing money into that until we can have a better idea, long term, of what is the best way of dealing with the traffic from south of the river,” Johnson said.

Said Commissioner Charles Jones: “I’d like to have a long-term game plan in place. Â I prefer to wait until I know what the big picture is.”

Commissioners say they want to be sure that an extended Kasold would be able to handle increased traffic loads 20 or 30 years from now, especially if Lawrence and Douglas County commissioners agree to extend the community’s urban growth area south of the river. Such a decision would tighten development regulations in exchange for the eventual extension of city services to the area, therefore encouraging construction of new homes and businesses.

The trafficway’s eventual widening from two to four lanes also could make the road’s existing intersection with the trafficway obsolete, Johnson said, because state highway officials don’t favor vehicles being forced to cross two lanes of high-speed traffic.

Simply repaving the gravel surface of East 1200 Road, Jones said, also seems problematic because it’s already dangerous enough on several fronts: for traffic turning on or off the trafficway; for walkers, runners and cyclists crossing the road on the trafficway’s recreational path; and for drivers turning onto 31st or Kasold from the south.

“A better road is going to draw more traffic,” Jones said. “A crummy road is going to drive more traffic away. Maybe we should do that.”

Commissioners set no deadline for making a decision, but they asked staffers to set up a meeting with the Technical Advisory Committee of the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission to address traffic and road issues.