Intersections targeted for safety changes

Officials are asking for federal help to prevent crashes at four of the city’s most accident-prone intersections.

Each of the intersections will be studied by engineers at the Kansas Department of Transportation, to see whether cost-effective changes could be made to improve safety. Intersections selected by the department would receive federal financing — up to 90 percent of construction and inspection costs — in late 2005.

The intersections city officials would like to see improved, and the number of accidents at each in 2003:

• 23rd and Louisiana, 22.
• 23rd and Haskell Avenue, 20.
• Ninth and Iowa streets, 19.
• 23rd and Harper, 16.

The federal program has helped finance dozens of adjustments at other high-accident intersections in Lawrence, including 23rd and Massachusetts streets and 27th and Iowa streets.

Next year, the program will help finance installation of traffic signals and widening of lanes at Seventh and Kentucky streets, where an entrance for a drop-off lane for the post office will be relocated from Seventh to Kentucky.

Sixth Street repaving set for summer

A 1.6-mile stretch of Sixth Street is scheduled for repaving this summer.

The street, from Arizona to Arkansas streets, will get a new surface and lane markings as part of a Kansas Department of Transportation program designed to maintain streets that connect to major highways.

Sixth Street, which is U.S. Highway 40, connected with Kansas Highway 10 and also McDonald Drive, which serves as the access road to the Kansas Turnpike.

The city will receive up to $200,000 to help finance the project, with the city responsible for paying anything more, City Manager Mike Wildgen said.

Reconstruction ordered in N.W. Lawrence

The intersection of Peterson Road and Monterey Way would be converted into a roundabout, as part of a larger city plan to turn the gravel roads into urban streets.

Lawrence city commissioners agreed Tuesday night to hire Landplan Engineering to draw up plans for rebuilding gravel portions of Monterey and Peterson at the northwestern edge of Lawrence. The work also will include plans for installing water lines, plus a traffic signal at the intersection of Kasold Drive and Peterson Road.

The plans will cost the city $415,740.

Rick’s Place passes site plan check

A downtown bar can go ahead and move into a neighborhood shopping center at the edge of the Old West Lawrence neighborhood.

Lawrence city commissioners approved a site plan Tuesday for Rick’s Place, which is relocating from 623 Vt. to a new place at 846 Ill.

Commissioners approved the site plan despite objections from neighbors, who oppose the presence of a bar in their neighborhood.

Rick Younger, who owns the bar, said they needn’t worry. He’s lived four blocks away for nine years, and he plans to dispatch a cleanup crew each night to make sure the 800 block of Illinois Street stays clean.

“The last thing I’m going to do is let anything happen to the neighborhood,” Younger said. “It’s mine, too.”

Bike helmet ordinance coasts to approval

Bike-riding youngsters soon will be mandated to wear helmets or else face the legal music for breaking the law.

The price: They’ll be forced to accept a coupon good for a free bike helmet.

Lawrence city commissioners approved an ordinance Tuesday that would make it illegal for children under age 16 to ride a bicycle without wearing a helmet.

“This obviously is not intended to be a criminal ordinance,” said Commissioner Boog Highberger, who helped develop the proposed ordinance with the Lawrence Safe Kids Coalition. “It will help give parents the leverage they need to insist that their children wear helmets.”

The ordinance is expected to take effect by the end of March.

Schedule

Today: Lawrence City Commission study session to discuss rules for access management and traffic impacts, 2:30 p.m. at City Hall. Joint study session with Douglas County Commission to discuss economic development issues, 3 p.m. at City Hall.