40 years ago: Lawrence leaders plan to improve northern city entrance

From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for March 15, 1972:

  • As the northern entrance into the city was less attractive than it could have been, Lawrence city commissioners had tentatively approved a project to improve the area. Funds from the federal Neighborhood Development Project were earmarked for new park areas at both ends of the Kansas River bridge and a new traffic-flow design for the intersection of Sixth and Massachusetts. According to design consultant John Blaney, “People’s initial impressions are important and I don’t think anyone’s impressions now are very good.”
  • One of over sixty bills signed by Gov. Robert Docking on the previous day included a bill which would create a state motor pool on July 1, 1973, by which “the state [would] take firm control of the use of state cars.”
  • Kansas highway crews had started painting new yellow dashed center lines along 8,500 miles of state two-lane highways. The changeover from white to yellow lines was to be completed by the end of the year.