A south-of-the-Wakarusa River route for the South Lawrence Trafficway doesn’t interest leaders of the Kansas Department of Transportation.

Sally Howard, chief counsel for KDOT, told city and county leaders this morning that her agency remained committed to building the road along a route through the Baker Wetlands north of the river. Howard said she was aware that a majority of city commissioners was now lobbying to have the road built south of the river, but she said there was still strong support for the 32nd Street route, which has received approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“We are not going to just sit back and wait until we have consensus,” Howard said. “If we do that, we might as well not go forward at all. If we had the funds, we would begin construction immediately.”

But for supporters of a south-of-the-river route, there was some good news in this morning’s meeting with city and county commissioners. Howard said there would be a new official public comment period about the roadway project within the next couple of months. The Federal Highway Administration now must hold hearings on the road because the project was recently awarded $1.5 million in federal funding. The Federal Highway Administration must give its approval before any federal dollars are spent on a highway project.

If opponents of the wetlands route can convince federal highway leaders that the route is problematic, it could be difficult to build the road through the wetlands. The Federal Highway Administration in the mid-1990s refused to support a route that ran through the wetlands. But the project has changed since that time. The proposed route now runs on Baker University land as opposed to land owned by Haskell Indian Nations University.

The project needs at least $110 million in funding to be completed, Howard said. She it likely would take a combination of state and federal dollars to fund the project.