U.S. 59 freeway go-ahead nears

Clearance for making detailed plans for a new freeway alongside U.S. Highway 59 could come within a month, a state highway official said Thursday.

Ron Kaufman, public involvement administrator for the Kansas Department of Transportation, said he expected the department to have its “record of decision” for the estimated $210.3 million project within a month.

KDOT remains firmly committed to building the four-lane freeway about 300 feet east of the existing highway between Lawrence and Ottawa, he said.

“The recommended corridor hasn’t changed,” Kaufman said.

Neither has the project’s schedule. Surveying work that started in January will continue through September or October, while preliminary design work could begin soon after the Federal Highway Administration issues its “record of decision.”

That decision would be the final governmental hurdle for the project to clear before detailed work could begin. Preliminary design should be completed in the fall of 2005, Kaufman said, with construction to begin in the spring of 2007 and be completed by the end of 2009.

State officials say that the accident rate on the existing stretch of U.S. 59 is 25 percent higher than on similar highways elsewhere in Kansas. Building the freeway would be expected to cut the rate of fatality accidents by 80 percent and trim the injury-accident rate by 60 percent.

Project opponents have argued that the freeway would displace too many businesses, destroy too many homes and cause too many other problems to justify the work. Instead, they say, the highway should be rebuilt on its current alignment.

State officials, however, previously rejected that concept, saying it wouldn’t solve the problems that prompted the project in the first place.