Topeka ? The state has no money to complete the South Lawrence Trafficway.

Even if the project gains the necessary federal permits and survives legal challenges, there are no funds to finish the $115 million highway connecting the Kansas Turnpike with Kansas Highway 10 east of the city along a route near 31st Street, transportation officials said Friday.

“Right now, we don’t know where the money would be to build this project,” said Jim McLean, spokesman for the Kansas Department of Transportation.

He said Transportation Secretary Deb Miller had expressed concern that residents of Lawrence had the impression the money would be available if and when the project received the necessary federal go-ahead.

“The money was never dedicated to make sure this will happen,” McLean said.

No dough

The funding problems are two-fold.

During the past several years, the state has been siphoning off money from the 10-year Comprehensive Transportation Program to balance the overall state budget. Completion of the South Lawrence Trafficway was never actually included in that 1999 program, which prioritizes what road projects will be built through 2009.

But even though the trafficway wasn’t in the comprehensive plan, state officials in the past hinted it might be added.

A car enters the South Lawrence Trafficway where the road begins and ends at Iowa Street. The state says it has run out of funds to complete the project even if federal approval comes through for the 31st Street route.

In November 2001, then-Transportation Secretary Dean Carlson told lawmakers that if the trafficway project received the federal go-ahead, adding it to the Comprehensive Transportation Plan “would have to be strongly considered.”

“The perception was pushed very strongly by the previous administration” that construction funds for the trafficway would be available, said Bruce Plenk, an attorney who represents the Wetlands Preservation Organization.

That was done, he said, to generate support for the project. The Wetlands group opposes the trafficway, saying the proposed location would ravage an environmentally sensitive area.

The 14-mile trafficway was designed to link Kansas Highway 10 east of the city with Interstate 70 northwest of the city. The nine-mile western leg has been open for several years, but opposition to the wetlands route has stymied its completion.

Wishful thinking?

Despite KDOT’s protestations about the lack of financing to finish the trafficway, supporters of the project remain optimistic the state will fund it, and soon.

“My feeling is that once the permit is issued that allows the road to be built, there will be an effort made to find some funds to get the construction project under way,” said Douglas County Commissioner Bob Johnson.

“KDOT will look for a way to get this project on their priority list,” Johnson said. He said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers might issue its permit for the project as early as this month. Legal challenges, he said, could be dealt with within a year.

¢ More stories about the South Lawrence Trafficway¢ More stories about the state budget

But according to KDOT, it would take a mammoth effort to fund just the projects remaining on the Comprehensive Transportation Plan.

Because of revenue problems, the state has taken about $200 million from the transportation plan.

So far, that hasn’t done much damage because the highway department has benefited from low-interest rates on bonds to build roads and lower-than-expected bids on some projects from contractors eager for work in a slow economy, officials said.

Still, Miller has warned that any further raid on the plan would send it crashing down.

“Even with the cuts that we’ve suffered to date, we can and will keep our promises to the communities of this state to complete all the announced projects and complete them on time,” Miller said. “But we cannot suffer any more substantial cuts in funding and still keep our promises.”

Plenk said it was time for the state to abandon the South Lawrence Trafficway as it was proposed, saying that even if the state were able to pay for the project, population growth in the area will make it unfeasible.

“It doesn’t make sense to build a road that is going to be obsolete,” he said.