Communication is a good thing.

After talking with downtown merchants, Lawrence city officials have come up with a plan that is expected to cut about a month off the construction time for a downtown sewer project, scheduled to start May 22. The reduced schedule will benefit not only downtown businesses but also people who come downtown for business and pleasure.

The original plan called for sewer lines to be replaced in the 700 and 800 blocks of Massachusetts one block at a time. But at a meeting last week, representatives of downtown businesses said they favored a plan that would complete the project in both blocks at the same time, first on one side of the street and then on the other.

The new plan will keep Massachusetts Street open for one-way traffic, in one direction or the other, and allow for parking on one side of the street throughout the project. The best part, though, is that it will shorten the construction schedule, allowing the project to be completed in mid-September rather than October. Among other benefits, the shorter schedule will reduce the number of Kansas University football weekends in which visitors will have to contend with construction.

And, city officials say, the new strategy won’t add to the overall cost of the project. This is such a win-win situation, that it’s hard to understand why it took city officials so long to consider this option.

City commissioners are scheduled to consider the new plan at their meeting Tuesday night. Also to be considered is a proposal to include a clause in the contract for the sewer work that would pay the contractors $1,000 per day for each day the project is finished ahead of schedule.

There may be a limit to how much the city wants to add to a contract that has been bid at $1.59 million, but the incentive is worth considering. Every day Massachusetts Street is torn up reduces the number of visitors to the area and has a detrimental effect on individual downtown businesses.

The good news in this scenario is that city officials had the good sense to at least belatedly confer with downtown business owners on this project. By doing so, they were able to adjust construction plans in a way that will benefit everyone involved.