Lawrence High School students cross Louisiana Street in front of parked school buses and southbound traffic after school Monday. School board members approved adding a bus lane at LHS on Louisiana Street to help ease traffic flow at the beginning and end of the school days.

Traffic congestion is like clockwork each weekday morning and afternoon at Lawrence High School, 1901 La., when school buses pull over.

“A rear-ender can happen at any moment,” said Lisa Hatter, who lives in the 2000 block of Ohio Street near the school.

But Lawrence school district and city leaders believe they have a solution to the traffic problem. School board members Monday night approved spending $86,100 for a bus turnoff lane with a median along Louisiana Street and the east side of LHS.

Now, when students are getting off or loading onto the bus, vehicles headed south on Louisiana Street have to move over, sometimes left of the center line, to get by. The setup can cause traffic to suddenly halt, particularly around a pedestrian island and crosswalk near 20th Street where there’s no room for vehicles to go.

Rick Gammill, the district’s director of special operations, said 11 buses are typically on the LHS route every morning and afternoon.

“We think it’s absolutely essential from a safety standpoint,” he said of the turnoff lane.

School board members selected a turnoff lane that includes a median and will save more trees from being chopped down.

“The kids can come right up. They can get on. They don’t have to come through the traffic and negotiate that,” said Matt Brungardt, LHS associate principal.

Tom Bracciano, the district’s division director of facility planning, said the project is in cooperation with the city widening part of 19th Street near the high school to create a middle left-turn lane from Louisiana Street west toward Alabama Street. Chuck Soules, the city’s public works director, said current plans are for the intersection at 19th and Louisiana streets to be rebuilt, with the westbound left-turn lane on 19th Street widened to Ohio Street.

A city neighborhood meeting about the planned improvements will be scheduled sometime in the next month, Soules said.

Some residents say the bus turnoff lane sounds like a good idea.

“It can really back things up during that time of the day,” said Laurie Hersey, who lives near the school.

The area has a slew of other traffic problems in the morning and late afternoon because of its proximity to LHS and Kansas University, she said.

Construction bids will be solicited and likely awarded sometime early next year, with officials shooting for the projects to be finished before school starts next fall.