To the editor:

I am the “resident east of Iowa” who, in your March 22 editorial espousing the Iowa Street turn lane, was reproached for expressing “concern that the turn lane would encourage more traffic to cut through his neighborhood.” I would appreciate a moment of rebuttal, in part because implicit in that characterization is that I am a selfish, shortsighted NIMBY.

I made three points at the neighborhood meeting. First: KDOT may be a generous source of “free” (not) money but is a poor source of ideas for local traffic planning as witnessed by the three predecessor KDOT plans, all of which the commission hooted off the stage. Second: City traffic planners lost sight of local traffic interests in their quest for “free” money. So uninterested were they in the effect on residential traffic that, when taking counts, they didn’t even try to determine traffic volume between Iowa and Kansas University on Stratford and University.

Third: The root of the problem is that KU is the origin or destination of most of the campus-to-Iowa traffic, traffic that is debilitating to the neighborhood now and will increase with a turn lane. KU should be a partner with the city in solving the traffic problems they create; the grand new gateway at 15th and Iowa should have included a gateway road, four-lane to Naismith, then Naismith four-lane from Sunnyside to Jayhawk Boulevard.

Perhaps the selfishness inheres more in KU and the shortsightedness in the proponents of the turn lane.

Bill Mitchell,

Lawrence