You already know to beware of game day traffic on 23rd Street.

Soon, you may want to add Harvest Day traffic to your list of reasons to avoid that major city thoroughfare.

Farmers are warning that 23rd Street could become a mess of large, slow-moving grain trucks if city commissioners follow through on plans to enforce more strictly its truck route ordinance.

“I’m scared to death we’re going to kill someone,” said Loren Baldwin, a farmer and member of the Douglas County Farm Bureau board. “We can’t stop those big trucks on a dime, and we can’t start as fast as normal traffic. I know the citizens of Lawrence don’t want us to be on that street, and we don’t want to be on it, either.”

But come fall harvest time – generally September through late November – that may be one of the few options farmers have to get their grain to the local elevator. Baldwin said several farmers were given verbal warnings by police officers during the summer wheat harvest to stay on state highways for as long as possible when delivering grain.

The main elevator for southern Lawrence is near 19th Street and Haskell Avenue. Under city regulations, grain trucks and all other types of trucks coming from outside the city limits are required to stay on state highways for as long as they possibly can before diverting onto other city streets.

In the case of southern Douglas County farmers, that means they have to come up Iowa Street and travel along 23rd Street to get to Haskell. They would rather have the option of using streets such as 31st and Haskell. Those from the east would like to be able to use 15th Street.

City commissioners tonight will consider creating a new ordinance that would give truck drivers more options. The city will consider new rules that would allow any truck driver who has a route either ending or starting in Lawrence to use designated delivery routes. Those streets generally are secondary roads in Lawrence, such as Haskell, Kasold, Wakarusa, and numbered streets such as 31st, 19th, 15th, 11th and Eighth streets.

The new ordinance would apply to all trucks, not just grain trucks. City engineers concede that they do not know how much additional traffic that could create for neighborhoods along those secondary streets.

“It is a good question, but I don’t have a clue,” said David Woosley, the city’s traffic engineer. “We haven’t done a study of how much truck traffic originates or ends in Lawrence.”

Commissioners also will consider two other options: one would change the current ordinance in a way that would give greater flexibility only to grain trucks and not other types of delivery trucks. Another option is to make 31st Street and Haskell Avenue truck routes, which would allow all types of trucks to travel on those roads.

Farmers are asking for the ability to drive on all designated delivery routes. They say the stakes are high for 23rd Street. It is estimated that the south Lawrence elevator receives about 100 grain trucks – mostly semitrailers – each day during the harvest season.

This year could produce even higher numbers because the corn crop is expected to be superb.

“With all the rain we’ve had, it looks like it is going to be a bin buster,” Baldwin said.