This aerial photo looks west along two Kansas Turnpike bridges being replaced at the northern edge of Lawrence. Construction of a new three-lane span is underway north of the bridges, and the Kansas Turnpike Authority is required to plant 60 trees to replace the 20 destroyed during construction. The trees will go along the east side of the river, beginning just past the site seen in the bottom, right-hand corner of the photo.

Kansas Turnpike Authority is preparing to make things easier for nearly 30,000 drivers who cross the Kansas River each day at the edge of Lawrence, spending $113 million for new bridges, lanes and other features for cars, trucks and other vehicles.

And, this week, the authority will invest about $15,000 to ensure some majestic birds can still enjoy the view.

The authority is bringing in landscaping crews to plant 60 trees – 30 cottonwoods and 30 sycamores – along the east bank of the river, near where the first new bridge is being built and another will soon follow.

The trees are young replacements for the 20 or so mature trees that were uprooted for the construction project, which started in June and will continue through 2011.

“We don’t want to go in and just tear everything up,” said Rex Fleming, project engineer for the turnpike authority. “We want to take care of the community and everything else. This is all part of it.”

The new trees will be about 12 feet tall, with calipers – that’s the diameter of the tree trunk, six inches above the root ball – measuring 2 to 2.5 inches, said Leonard Bremenkamp, commercial estimator for Lawrence Landscape, the contractor hired for the job.

The trees will be planted within 100 feet of the river’s edge, in six species-specific groupings of 10. One set will go on the south side of the bridges, while the rest will run north from the project for no more than a half mile.

The goal is to give eagles a place to build nests and prosper, Bremenkamp said. The new additions will need plenty of time to reach optimum heights – 50 feet or more – for eagles to deem them attractive for resting and nesting.

Eagle-eye views

“They should eventually match or exceed anything that’s out there,” Bremenkamp said of the trees. “If I was an eagle, I’d want to be in the tallest tree so I could see everything.”

Bremenkamp is consulting with landscaping officials from the city of Lawrence to see that the trees are planted in appropriate places.

While many of the trees that were removed to make way for the bridge construction were taken from the west side of the river, officials chose to plant the new ones on the east side because of that side’s comparatively low number of appropriate trees.

“It’s all part of renewal,” Bremenkamp said. “Whenever you take something away, you need to put something back.”

The new trees will be expected to spruce up both the area’s attractiveness both for eagles and others.

“It won’t be like the corner of somebody’s driveway,” Bremenkamp said. “We’ll do it so it looks like they were planted by nature.”

Planting ahead

The turnpike authority is having the trees planted now so they can establish themselves and be well on their way toward maturity by the time construction is complete. Under terms of the authority’s permit with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, the trees must be maintained for three years and in a manner that would support a survival rate of 85 percent.

Authority officials intend to surround the young trees with fences or otherwise mark them to indicate that they should not be disturbed during construction. Maintenance crews will be tasked to see that the trees are watered and otherwise kept healthy through the end of the project.

Such attention to the natural environment is a key component of the project and others undertaken by the authority, said Lisa Callahan, a turnpike spokeswoman.

“It is very serious for us not only on this project, but on other projects as well,” she said. “That’s something we’ve kept in mind with our traffic management for the project, so we don’t have idling cars. We want the cars and trucks to keep moving because that’s a concern for the environment.

“We also want to return the look of the area to where it was, and to provide a good, new, sturdy structure without damaging anything in doing it.”

The new bridges indeed will be built to last – at least 50 years, Fleming said – and to accommodate an anticipated jump in use. Projections show that by 2030, the bridges together should be handling nearly 70,000 vehicles per day, which would be an increase of 135 percent.

If the new trees prove to be good spots from which the eagles can observe, Fleming said, all will be well.

“It’s nice that we can work together and come up with a nice plan for everybody,” he said.