It appears one of the casualties of Kansas’ severe financial problems may be any hope of getting started in the near future on land acquisition and construction of the eastern leg of the South Lawrence Trafficway.

Deb Miller, the new secretary of transportation, said she would not allocate any of the $14 million set aside for the badly needed project until two things happen:

l The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issues its “record of decision” to select a route for the road, expected to run through the Baker Wetlands.

l Any lawsuits filed by trafficway opponents are considered and cleared by the courts.

Miller said such conditions would give her and her department “time to breathe.”

Miller acknowledges there are likely to be further lawsuits, and she thought it best to wait until those legal challenges have been heard and resolved.

This being the case, one has to wonder whether legal challenges to any road that infringes on the wetlands will ever end. Miller’s statement is almost an invitation for trafficway opponents to initiate a strategy of never-ending legal challenges to stall the project regardless of when the corps issues its “record of decision” favoring the 32nd Street alignment.

Is there a way to stop the lawsuits if it becomes obvious their only purpose is to stall the project? Unfortunately, one of the side effects of such action is to deepen the rift between many in the Lawrence community and Haskell Indian Nations University. This is not good because it makes many residents who could be of help reluctant to help the school with its various needs.

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The importance of the South Lawrence Trafficway in relieving traffic congestion in and around Lawrence was given added emphasis by a new report by a nonpartisan Washington, D.C., organization called The Road Information Program. According to TRIP, traffic on the nation’s interstate system (I-70 included) has grown 37 percent in the past 10 years. According to this report, highway officials predict traffic on the interstate system will increase 42 percent in the next 20 years with truck traffic expected to grow 54 percent. This is one of the reasons Kansas Turnpike officials are planning to expand the turnpike within a relatively short time by adding two lanes to the highway between Topeka and Kansas City.

If the trafficway is not completed soon, traffic in and around Lawrence is going to become a nightmare without visionary thinking by reluctant city officials. At a time when money is short, it is sad, almost disgusting, to realize the cost of the entire trafficway project originally was estimated at $43 million. Now the price tag is at least three times that amount and is likely to grow even higher as trafficway opponents continue to delay the long-overdue road.

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There’s been much talk in recent days about academic reform in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. and a revision in how high school athletes are judged eligible for college athletic scholarships.

In the past, eligibility for high school students has been based on SAT scores. There has been much discussion that such a system discriminates against many from the inner city who may not have the same educational advantages as students in suburban areas. Consequently, changes are under way to use a combination of SAT scores and students’ high school grades to determine eligibility.

This would seem to open the door for even greater abuse because high school grades can and are adjusted to favor an athlete’s chances of getting a scholarship. There is no uniformity from one high school to another on how grades are determined, the difficulty of courses or what courses prepare a high school student athlete for college.

Using high school grades is sure to prompt many questionable and unethical actions similar to the current situation for junior college athletes seeking to transfer to Division I schools. This is a growing problem because some Division I universities will allow a specific junior college athlete to transfer in while the same athlete would have no chance of getting into another university that refuses to accept credit hours for questionable courses.

This happens within the Big 12, but few are willing to point to specific cases. How in the world will college presidents, athletic directors and coaches be able to monitor the academic record of high school students who, for one reason or another, have received inflated grades from their teachers?

The proposed changes may be favored by many college coaches and administrators, but there is likely to be far more cheating under the proposed plan than when eligibility is determined by a standard SAT test given to all students throughout the country.

Also, if school administrators are concerned about academic performance, why not devise some kind of eligibility plan whereby the graduation rates for teams are an important factor in determining whether they can participate in football bowl games or the NCAA basketball tournament?

With the huge sums of money generated by bowl games and NCAA tournaments being so important to allow schools to support so-called Olympic sports, maybe the possibility of being cut off from the gravy train would cause university officials to be far more demanding about the academic performance of their teams. This would start by determining which players are given scholarships at the freshman level. As it is now, eligibility is highly questionable, whether for the high school student entering college or for the junior college athlete transferring to a Division I school.