When the western half of the South Lawrence Trafficway was built as a “super two” highway, the expectation was that the road later would be expanded to a four-lane road.

With that in mind, most local residents probably assumed that the SLT, which also is designated as part of Kansas Highway 10, was being designed in a way that would make it relatively easy to just add another two lanes of traffic at a later date.

Well, think again.

Now that engineers at the Kansas Department of Transportation are starting to draw up plans for the bypass expansion, they are finding all kinds of issues with the original road that need to be fixed. Some of those “fixes” are needed to improve the safety of the road, but others would change the SLT and Turnpike traffic patterns in ways that many local residents may question.

Some wonder whether the changes are necessary and others may wonder why some of the problems that are being cited now weren’t apparent to the original designers of the road.

One trouble area that clearly needs attention is the current intersection at 27th Street and Wakarusa Drive near the Youth Sports Complex. To improve safety at the heavily traveled location, KDOT is recommending eliminating the SLT interchange at that location and replacing it with either an overpass or underpass. A new interchange would be built further east with a road that would connect to Wakarusa. These revisions are included in both options KDOT has presented for public consideration. Both of those options also include eliminating the substandard access to the SLT at Kasold Drive, which seems reasonable.

Plans get more questionable, however, where the SLT crosses Clinton Parkway and turns north. Thankfully, KDOT isn’t suggesting any changes at the Bob Billings interchange, which hasn’t even opened yet, or at Sixth Street. However, they are looking at major changes at Clinton Parkway and at the county road known as the Farmers Turnpike. Clinton Parkway poses a couple of concerns for KDOT officials. First, the sharp curve at that location creates safety concerns, which raises the question: Why was it designed that way in the first place?

KDOT engineers also are considering eliminating the relatively low-traffic interchange at Clinton Parkway and building a road to connect Clinton Parkway traffic to the Bob Billings interchange. That will complicate access to the SLT for residents in southwest Douglas County as well as access from the SLT to Clinton Lake. It also heightens the concern of people who already are worried about how much the new interchange will increase traffic on Bob Billings.

Engineers also are looking at new configurations for the turnpike interchange at the SLT’s west end that would eliminate access from the Farmers Turnpike. To accommodate that change, a new turnpike interchange would be built several miles to the west to connect with County Road 1029, just south of Lecompton. Building a new interchange would be an expensive solution to a problem that many local residents may not think is severe. It would create new access from Lecompton to the turnpike, but make access from Lecomtpon to the SLT more difficult.

It’s discouraging to have KDOT considering so many major and expensive changes to a road that has only been open for 20 years. If this section of the SLT is going to be rebuilt, KDOT should do it right, but the number of changes being proposed make us wonder what new problems another set of KDOT engineers will find another decade or two down the road.