25 years ago: Traffic flow discussed for new riverfront project

From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Sept. 21, 1988:

  • A traffic consultant who had been hired by the City of Lawrence made some remarks at a recent City Commission meeting about traffic near the proposed riverfront shopping complex. Speaking to the commissioners and public attendees, Edward Mulcahy of the Kansas City consulting firm of Johnson, Brickell, Mulcahy and Associates, said that Sixth and New Hampshire streets could accommodate two-way traffic near the planned complex. After leading commissioners through a detailed report with projections for the year 2008, Mulcahy said that the existing downtown traffic system was “operating at a very high level of service” and that “with growth and no basic changes … and with simple timing adjustments (in street signal lights), we can attain high levels of service even with high traffic growth.” Mulcahy said that the opening of the riverfront mall would bring an estimated additional 9,600 vehicle trips to the area on a typical weekday.
  • Lawrence High School was showing higher average scores than Kansas and the rest of the nation on the American College Testing exam. However, the LHS composite score on the ACT was 0.5 of a point lower than the previous year. John Poggio, an associate professor of education research at Kansas University, said that shifts of that magnitude were “barely noticeable, statistically” but cautioned that attention should be paid if slight annual declines continued over a period of years.