Snow-packed roads in Douglas County making commutes take much longer
A city of Lawrence plow turns the corner at Seventh and New Hampshire en route to plow more of the city's residential streets Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2010. The city uses a base of operations in east Lawrence to cover the city's eastern streets. Another base of operations, off Wakarusa Drive, supports plowing operations in western Lawrence.
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Wednesday’s forecast
There’s no snow in the forecast for Wednesday, but don’t expect to go outside and feel warm, either. The National Weather Service is calling for a high of 13 degrees during the day, with a wind out of the northwest about 10 mph. The sun should be out, but the wind chill will make the temperature feel like -8 to -18 degrees. Overnight, the low temperature is expected to drop to -6 degrees.
Snow-packed roads and a day with at least 6 inches of snowfall has made commuting in and out of Lawrence more difficult than usual.
Justin Langford, a Lawrence resident who commutes to downtown Topeka for work, thought 20 minutes would be enough extra time to get to work Monday morning in the bad weather. Turns out, that wasn’t even close. A drive that normally takes him 35 minutes took an hour and 15 minutes.
“I was just sitting there,” he said.
Langford is one of approximately 8,000 people who commute daily from Lawrence to Topeka on the Kansas Turnpike, according to a rough estimate from the Kansas Turnpike Authority.
Langford said Interstate 70 between Lawrence and Topeka was fine for driving, but the streets in each city were hard to navigate.
“Once I got to Topeka, it was a mess,” he said.
Lawrence is working hard to treat its streets right now, said Megan Gilliland, communications manager for the city. Crews have been on the roads since Monday evening in residential areas, and she said the city expected to have all of those streets treated and plowed by Wednesday morning.
“Crews continue 24-hour operations until we feel the roads are in conditional for normal operations,” she said.
Aaron Ladage, a web designer for Kansas University Relations, commutes from Overland Park to Lawrence every day, and he worked from home on Monday after feeling sick and realizing the driving wouldn’t be easy.
Tuesday’s drive wasn’t terrible, but his drive still took about 20 minutes longer than normal. His normal route of Kansas Highway 10 was unpredictable, as well.
“There were some spots where the lane was fine, and then it was snow-packed,” he said.