To the editor:

Lawrence obviously needs a bypass to ease congestion on 23rd Street, and the state also needs a bypass to connect South Kansas City’s Interstate 35, Interstate 435 and other highways to Interstate 70. Kansas Highway 10 will become a major interstate truck route as well as the best way to head west from south Kansas City. K-10, according to the Kansas Department of Transportation, is running at full capacity already and they acknowledge that it will soon need to be expanded to six lanes if the bypass goes through!

Do we want all that extra traffic coming down 32nd Street? We can’t expand that location to six lanes. It would become a bottleneck and, if anything, increase our traffic problems locally. This could happen the first year after completion. It doesn’t take people long to find the quickest and least expensive route.

The best option is to put the bypass south of the Wakarusa River, opening that up to more development, and building our own parkway on what is now 31st Street connecting to K-10, or I-10 as it may become, on the east and west ends of town.

The state needs this bypass, but it may not be the best way to ease traffic problems in Lawrence. They need to suck it up and pay for the bridges. The city of Lawrence needs to find the funding to build a parkway that serves our own needs.

Stephen J. Crockett,

Lawrence