Traffic moves Ninth Street on Wednesday evening. The city is planning to improve this stretch of road between Tennessee and Iowa streets.

Ninth Street is about to get an overhaul designed to preserve the road, keep drivers from running into one another and — perhaps most noticeable of all — smooth out the irritating rumble strip that runs downhill toward downtown Lawrence.

The repaving, rebuilding and road-realigning work begins next month between Iowa and Tennessee streets, adhering to a tight deadline to be finished before KU starts its fall semester in August.

And those sunken manhole covers that force drivers either to swerve around them or spill their coffee each morning?

Problem solved.

“You’ll glide right over them,” said Chuck Soules, the city’s public works director. “Right now it’s like a minefield. It’s like a bunch of potholes, but you can’t fill them in because they’re (covers for) manholes and water valves. …

“We’ll bring them up to grade and put a little concrete around them so they’ll be flat with the road. They’re still going to be there, but you won’t have the bumps.”

The smoother ride is one of several benefits being designed into the project, set to begin next month. Contractors will find out June 2 which company submitted the lowest qualifying bid for the job, which has several components:

• Repave the mile-long section of street, by removing the existing surface and replacing it with a fresh, 2-inch-thick coat of pavement.

• Remove and replace sections of curbs and gutters, as needed.

• Add a left-turn lane in the center of Ninth, for vehicles turning onto Avalon Road. The northern stretch of Avalon also will be moved slightly to the east, so that its intersection with Ninth will be closer to a 90-degree angle.

The new turn lane will be intended to improve safety for vehicles waiting to turn, especially those crossing traffic to go north, Soules said. Drivers coming over the hill from Iowa Street don’t always see cars that are stopped, waiting to turn left.

Rear-end accidents result, leading to injuries, property damage and traffic delays.

“The turn lane won’t have a lot of storage and stacking capacity” — translation: room for cars to wait without getting hit from behind — “but it will allow people to get out of the through lanes,” Soules said.

The project is being financed, in part, with $295,000 expected to be collected this year as part of a citywide sales tax approved by voters this past November. The money is available for maintenance projects, and the Ninth Street work is the first one in line.

The work zone will be marked with a sign reminding drivers that their expenditures in town are helping fix their roads, Soules said.

“That’s important,” he said.

While the work will cause delays, lane closures and detours, Soules is confident that the public will be pleased with its investment.

Among the most noticeable improvements, he said, will be the road’s leveling with manhole and water valve covers, the metal lids that provide access to sanitary sewers and water pipes below the street.

As on previous road upgrades, each Ninth Street manhole will be surrounded with a square collar of concrete. That will make it easier for crews to match up pavement levels, both now and in the future.

“You’ll still feel them, just because they’re there, but it’ll be smoother,” Soules said.