From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Feb. 18, 1972:

On this day, Gov. Robert Docking signed into law the $320 million highway bonding bill which had been approved the previous week by the Kansas Legislature. The new law, which the governor called “the most progressive highway program in the history of Kansas,” authorized the highway commission to sell $49 million a year in highway revenue bonds over the next eight years in order to hasten construction of parts of the state roads system. The system, which had been set up by the 1969 legislature, consisted of about 1,200 miles of proposed new freeways in nine corridors across the state. The Lawrence area had two of the three top priority projects under the new law — U.S. 59 south of Lawrence and Kansas 10 east of Lawrence.