Even without an approved route to follow for the South Lawrence Trafficway, state highway officials know where they want to go  and they’re preparing to buy enough land to get there.

Officials are ordering appraisals of up to 150 acres of land southeast of Kansas Highway 10 and Noria Road, where an interchange would be built to serve as the eastern end of the trafficway.

The move is designed to speed up the state’s purchases of the land once federal officials decide which route the road should take between K-10 and the existing trafficway, which now ends at U.S. Highway 59 at the southern edge of Lawrence.

The acquisitions would come out of the $15 million state officials have allocated to spend by the end of the year, all in a push to get the new stretch of road started before a new governor takes office in January.

“I’m a believer in that anything you can do today you should do, and not put it off until tomorrow,” said Mike Rees, chief counsel for the Kansas Department of Transportation. “We are, in fact, committed to try to get this ready so that the secretary (Dean Carlson) can decide he’ll build it.

“We’ll give him the option to sign the contracts before he leaves.”

Robert Smith, trafficway project manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said his federal agency hoped to choose between one of two “preferred” trafficway options by year’s end:

l A 32nd Street alignment, through the Baker Wetlands, at a cost of $105 million. It is KDOT’s preferred alignment.

l A 42nd Street alignment, running south of the Wakarusa River, at a cost of $128.5 million. It is being considered at the corps’ behest.

The corps will conduct a public hearing Thursday to accept comments regarding project alternatives and KDOT’s application for filling about 60 acres at the north end of the Baker Wetlands. The hearing begins at 6:30 p.m. in Building 21 at the Douglas County 4-H Fairgrounds, 2110 Harper St.

Steve Glass, who leads an investment group that owns nearly 100 acres in the interchange’s path, said he would attend the hearing and voice his support for finishing the highway along the 32nd Street route.

The upcoming appraisal of the land owned by PDO Investors LLC and a handful of other sites comes at an appropriate time, he said. Development pressures continue to rise along Lawrence’s periphery, and such attention tends to boost land values.

Not that he’s looking to line his pockets with taxpayer money.

“I’m not going to give it to them, but we’re not going to be a roadblock either,” said Glass, who also is president of Lawrence-based LRM Industries Inc., a major highway contractor. “We want the road as badly, I think, as the majority of citizens do.”

The first nine miles of the trafficway, connecting Interstate 70 northwest of Lawrence to the southern end of Iowa Street, cost about $45 million and opened to traffic in 1996. KDOT acquired property from dozens of owners to make way for the road, after prolonged negotiations that drew complaints about the fairness of prices paid.

For the eastern interchange, Rees said he anticipated that it would cost about $1 million to acquire the necessary four or five parcels of land.

And the investment would be worthwhile, he said, because the site itself remains flexible  either for another trafficway alignment or even an extension of 31st Street east of Haskell Avenue.

“The interchange is still a universal interchange,” Rees said. “If the corps selected 42nd Street, and we don’t build the trafficway, the next administration could still use the land to build it.

“But we’re moving ahead in furtherance of the hope of building on 32nd Street.”

In all, Rees said, it might take $4 million or $ 5 million to acquire enough land for the road between the Baker Wetlands and K-10. Land purchases likely would not begin until corps officials selected a final route.

For trafficway opponents, Rees’ rush to acquire property is yet another indication of the state’s desperation to breathe life into an “unconscionable” project, said Stan Ross, sponsor and Haskell Indian Nations University alumni adviser for the Wetlands Preservation Organization, which has opposed any plan that would cut through the Baker Wetlands.

“They’re in a terrible hurry to get this thing started before (Gov. Bill) Graves leaves office,” Ross said. “If they don’t get that road built this year, or get an OK to build it, I think the project’s done for.”