Overhauling 23rd Street is an estimated $27.6 million job — and that’s only the beginning, Douglas County commissioners learned Monday.

Making the busy 4.5-mile corridor a more manageable thoroughfare will take a healthy investment, both public and private, said Bill Ahrens, city-county traffic planner.

And it won’t happen quickly.

“It got bad over time, and it’ll have to get better over time,” Ahrens said.

The project’s road map — formally known as the 23rd Street Corridor Study — made its way Monday to the Douglas County Courthouse, where commissioners got their first peek at recommended lane widenings, traffic signal installations, power line burials and driveway closures.

The idea is to make things better for drivers, merchants and anyone else connected with 23rd Street, which carries as many as 39,000 vehicles a day with few signs the load will let up.

Planners crunched traffic counts, reviewed land uses and projected future developments to come up with a list of recommendations intended to drive decisions — both individual and governmental — through the year 2025.

“We ought to be planning ahead, and when the opportunity presents itself we’ll be ready to do some of these things,” said Bob Johnson, commission chairman. “Otherwise, when you wake up 25 years from now, the situation is much, much worse. This way, things may not be better, but they won’t be worse.”

The study area stretches from Iowa Street east to Noria Road, past several homes, dozens of businesses and hundreds of acres of vacant property ripe for redevelopment.

¢ 6News video: Overhaul of 23rd Street discussed¢ Argument about traffic light dominates 23rd Street forum (8-16-02)

As proposed in the plan, upgrades would take a phased approach:

• 2003 to 2008: Coordinate traffic signals from Iowa to Harper streets; expand the intersection of 23rd and Iowa streets to include double-turn lanes; complete sidewalks between Iowa and Barker Avenue; and build an interchange on 23rd Street (Kansas Highway 10) at Franklin Road. Cost: $9.35 million.
• 2009 to 2014: Widen 23rd Street to six or seven lanes from Haskell Avenue east to O’Connell Road; bury power lines, restore Breezedale monuments and complete other aesthetic improvements. Cost: $9 million.
• 2015 to 2025: Widen 23rd Street from O’Connell to Noria roads; build frontage road northeast of 23rd Street and Learnard Avenue, to better handle truck traffic; and install sidewalks, relocate utilities and do other aesthetic improvements. Cost: $9.22 million.

Four hundred Lawrence residents responded to a random telephone survey seeking to gauge public opinions about 23rd Street, its problems and possible solutions. Among the findings:¢ 82 percent use the road at least a few times a week, while 62 percent drive on it at least once a day.¢ 67 percent consider 23rd Street “much more congested” than other major roadways in town.¢ 32 percent said that travel on 23rd Street has become “more dangerous” during the past five years, while an additional 12 percent said it has gotten “much more dangerous.” Just 4 percent said that traveling the road has gotten safer.¢ Top concerns for travel on the street: delays at signals, 85 percent; sufficiency of signal coordination, 84 percent; number of vehicles waiting at signals, 84 percent; and vehicles turning into or out of businesses along 23rd Street, 81 percent.

Businesses with multiple access points could be encouraged to close some of their driveways. But Ahrens cautioned that such suggestions previously had run up against plenty of opposition, much like an early concept to build a raised median running the length of 23rd Street.

Even if the city wanted to ease traffic flow by cutting down on the number of driveways, Ahrens said, it simply couldn’t snap its municipal fingers and make it so.

As many as 25 percent of the road’s access points could be targeted for removal, he said, and that takes money — both public and private.

“It’s those points that can be closed without jeopardizing a business — businesses with multiple driveways,” Ahrens said. “As properties redevelop, we’ll be looking for ways that businesses can share a common right of way. …

“Frankly, there’s no dedicated pot of money to do that, either,” he said.

Commissioners held off deciding about the plan’s implementation but plan to meet for a study session about it with Lawrence city commissioners.

City commissioners would be expected to approve or adjust the plan. Ahrens said no date for such a review had been set.