Eudora ? Eudora officials pressed their case Thursday for a new interchange on Kansas Highway 10 from the city’s west side.

Kansas Department of Transportation officials heard the pleas in a meeting that also brought together officials from Lawrence and Douglas County.

The Transportation Department and HDR Engineering are conducting a study of K-10 corridor that they hope to have finished by the end of 2004. The heavily traveled highway links Overland Park and Lawrence.

Citing the city’s 12 percent growth in the past two years and the 75 new houses that have been built in town since the beginning of the year, Eudora officials said they wanted to be sure any study involving the highway would take note of Eudora’s future needs.

“With the rapid rate of growth in this city, we’re afraid it’s going to sneak up on us,” Eudora Mayor Ron Conner said.

There are now two interchanges from K-10 into Eudora, neither of them on the west side of town. The city would like to see at least one more interchange added to serve the west side and improvements made on the existing interchanges.

“What we have is not a modern access (to K-10),” Conner said.

City Administrator Mike Yanez estimated that 25,000 cars passed by Eudora on K-10 each day.

Terry Heidner, KDOT director of planning and development, said the study was for investigation purposes.

Although KDOT is looking at expanding the highway from four to as many as eight lanes in the next 20 to 30 years, the study is not an indication the project will be completed, Heidner said.