KDOT ready to rumble on highway resurfacing

Rumble strips

State transportation leaders hope a little shake and rattle will produce a whole lot less roll on Kansas highways.

The Kansas Department of Transportation on Tuesday announced a policy to begin installing “rumble strips” in the center of hundreds of miles of Kansas highways, all in an effort to prevent accidents caused by drivers falling asleep at the wheel.

“We think this will be a great attention-getter for motorists,” said Steve Swartz, a spokesman with KDOT.

Swartz said the policy will mandate that nearly all two-lane rural Kansas highways have football-shaped indentations placed in the pavement along the center line of the highway. The rumble strips will be similar to the strips on the edges of some highways that produce a loud noise when tires roll over them.

“I expect the policy will help keep people on the roadway, which will ultimately save lives and prevent injuries,” said David Church, chief of KDOT’s Bureau of Traffic Engineering.

The rumble strips will be installed in phases across the state. The strips will be installed as each highway is repaved. Swartz estimated that it will take about 10 years for all the state’s rural highways to be equipped with the strips.

One Douglas County highway already has them. U.S. Highway 40 between the Lawrence city limit and Shawnee County line has had the center strips since 2005, Swartz said. The highway is one of two in the state that was chosen as a demonstration project.

Swartz said the state doesn’t have specific data on whether the strips have reduced the number of crashes on U.S. 40, but he said other states have had good results with the rumble strips.

Swartz said the state decided to move ahead with installing the strips on other roads because it seemed a common-sense way to improve highway safety without spending a significant amount of money.

KDOT is estimating that it will cost about $1,800 a mile to install the strips as part of a normal repaving project. Swartz said that is reasonable considering it costs $50,000 to $75,000 to repave a 1-mile stretch of two-lane highway.