City planning for springtime reconstruction of Kasold Drive

Kasold Reconstruction

Next year’s planned reconstruction of Kasold Drive, from Clinton Parkway to 31st Street, calls for:

• adding left-turn lanes at several intersections.

• installing a center median with landscaping.

• filling a 1,100-foot-long gap in a recreational path south of the intersection of 31st and Kasold; the new section of path will start on the south side of 31st and go south until it connects with the existing path.

• extending an existing sidewalk along Kasold, which now ends at Havrone Way, to the south so it connects with an existing sidewalk along the north side of 31st.

Decision time is approaching for drivers who use Kasold Drive, and the folks who live alongside it.

A 1.2-mile stretch of the four-lane road, from Clinton Parkway to 31st Street, is set for reconstruction beginning in the spring. An engineering firm is working on final plans, and a contractor is expected to be hired early next year.

Just how the construction proceeds is up for discussion.

“We want to have general discussions to see what that neighborhood area wants to do,” said Chuck Soules, the city’s director of public works. “It’s going to be a six- to nine-month — maybe longer — construction process. There’s going to be some inconvenience.

“We want to know: What are the residents going to be willing to put up with?”

To help gauge public sentiment, Soules will join other city staffers and contract engineers in conducting a project open house from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Aug. 31 at Holcom Park Recreation Center, 2700 W. 27th St.

The event will provide information about potential traffic detours, scheduling, costs and other factors that could change, depending on how nearby residents and drivers react.

“If we do certain things, we might be able to get it done quicker and cheaper,” Soules said. “It’s the magnitude that (everyone’s) willing to put up with. We can spend a lot of money and make sure they have as little inconvenience as they want, but that inconvenience is going to last a lot longer — and the longer we drag this out, that’s how it gets expensive. Time is money.”

The city is rebuilding the section of Kasold because the road’s base has deteriorated to the point that sporadic surface repairs are becoming both more prevalent and less effective.

The project generally will be similar to last year’s reconstruction of Kasold, north from Clinton Parkway to Bob Billings Parkway, Soules said. But unlike that earlier project, don’t expect a long line of new streetlights to fill the upcoming project’s new center median.

“The existing lighting sits behind the rec path and the existing sidewalks now,” Soules said. “We won’t be touching them. The existing lighting will remain.”

The project is expected to cost from $5 million to $6 million, with the bulk of financing expected to come from a city sales tax approved by voters in November. The Kansas Department of Transportation is expected to pump up to $1.4 million into the project.