Jack Page of Wildcat Concrete Services takes a break to wipe sweat from his face as he and others chip away bad concrete from the southbound lane of the Kansas River Bridge on Thursday, July 28, 2011. KDOT is funding this resurfacing of the bridge. With students returning to Lawrence in upcoming days, drivers can expect a slower commute because of the various road projects around town.

Your car’s idling, you’re sweating, and your destination is waiting.

But there’s no sense complaining about the road work that’s putting the brakes on your daily travel at seemingly every turn, according to a guy who feels your pain.

“It’s in every town, all summer long,” said Brad Minnick, a salesman from Lawrence who visits hundreds of communities, large and small, throughout northeast Kansas and runs into barricades, orange cones and flag-wielding construction workers at each stop. “It’s just part of life. If you’re not able to deal with it, my own personal opinion is you might need to get some help yourself.”

But before you book an appointment with an anger-management therapist, take a deep breath and check out this list of projects that are among the most disruptive in and around Lawrence.

The soothing message: There’s a light at the end of the tunnel — or, better yet, a fresh and smooth road surface at the end of each project.

A rundown:

• Sixth Street, from Missouri to Tennessee streets, down to one lane each way for repaving and addition of a right-turn lane at Maine Street, with scheduled completion Aug. 8. After that, the stretch from Missouri to Iowa streets will be down to one lane in each direction for repaving and addition of a right-turn lane at Michigan Street, expected to be finished in mid-September.

• Sixth Street, from Monterey Way to Folks Road, down to one lane in each direction for widening, repaving and addition of a center lane. Scheduled completion: Early September.

• Kasold Drive, from Clinton Parkway to 31st Street, down to one lane in each direction for reconstruction to add center turn lanes with medians, plus wider sidewalks. Scheduled completion: Late November.

• Kansas Turnpike, down to one lane in each direction for three miles east from the Lawrence service area northeast of town, for pavement replacement. Expected completion: By Thanksgiving. Lane-blocking work on the turnpike’s Kansas River bridge for traffic heading west is expected to be done within a couple weeks.

• Kansas River bridges, connecting Sixth Street with North Second Street in North Lawrence, down to one lane one each for a state project that includes patching and resurfacing. Scheduled completion: Late September.

• Bob Billings Parkway, from Crestline to Kasold drives, down to one lane in each direction for reconstruction, including reconstruction of intersection at Crestline. Scheduled completion: mid-August.

• 15th Street, from Burdick to Naismith drives, closed for work on underground utilities as construction continues on the new Measurement, Materials and Sustainable Environment Center at the Kansas University School of Engineering. Scheduled road completion: By Aug. 12.

• Haskell Avenue, from 15th to 23rd streets, one-lane sections blocked intermittently, with flaggers, for sealing of pavement cracks. Scheduled completion: mid-August.

• Kentucky Street, from 17th to 19th streets, down to one lane for replacement of waterlines. Scheduled completion: Undetermined, but entire project — split into successive one- and two-block sections heading north to 12th Street — is to be finished in January.

• Ninth Street, from Vermont to Tennessee streets, down to one lane in each direction for replacement of waterlines. Scheduled completion: Aug. 19.

Still more major work awaits: From early to late September, a city project calls for resurfacing all lanes and reconfiguring center-lane medians along Kasold Drive, from Trail to Peterson roads. The work will reduce traffic to one lane in each direction along Kasold.

But the work has to end sometime, right? And that sometime is moving ever closer, said Mark Thiel, who oversees many of the projects as the city’s assistant director of public works.

“We’ve got another six to eight weeks of good construction weather,” he said. “We’ll be working out till the middle of October before it starts really slowing down.”

Whew, you say — until Thiel brings us all back to a chilling reality.

“Then it’ll snow.”