photo by: Nick Krug

Motorists along East 1200 Road approach a stop sign at an intersection that connects East 1200 Road and the South Lawrence Trafficway just south of the Kasold curve on Tuesday, March 29, 2016.

Kansas Department of Transportation officials got near consensus support Tuesday from Douglas County and Lawrence city commissioners on a plan for the Kansas Highway 10/Kasold Drive intersection — but not for the one they recommended.

KDOT officials addressed a joint meeting of the Douglas County and Lawrence commissions at Lawrence City Hall with the goal of gaining consensus support for its recommendation of limiting access to K-10 to and from Kasold Drive to the north of the highway and East 1200 Road to the south to right-on and right-off turns. That plan is estimated to cost $70,000.

But instead, two of the three county commissioners and all five city commissioners said they would support the installation of a traffic light at the intersection.

“You came looking for consensus, and you came to Lawrence,” Douglas County Commission Chairman Jim Flory said. “I think those two things might be mutually exclusive.”

Douglas County Commissioner Nancy Thellman was the sole commissioner to support the KDOT plan, saying she found it difficult not to back a solution traffic engineers said was the safest.

Tuesday’s meeting ended KDOT staff review of alternatives for the intersection, which started in February after the department backed away from an announced decision to close all K-10 access to and from Kasold Drive and East 1200 Road. That decision came when both commissions wrote letters in support of maintaining access at the intersection.

Ryan Barrett, K-10’s west leg project manager, and project team member Greg Weatherd, of HNTB Corporation, said the search for the recommended alternative gave primary emphasis to safety but also considered traffic flow, access and cost. Four alternatives were filtered through those considerations, including the extremes of leaving the intersection as it is and closing it. Two other options considered were placing a traffic signal at the site and the right-on, right-off option KDOT is recommending.

KDOT estimates leaving the intersection unchanged when traffic doubles at the location with the opening of the South Lawrence Trafficway this fall would cause a 78 percent increase in accidents, Barrett said. A traffic signal was estimated to lead to fewer accidents than leaving the intersection as is, and they would be less severe than the T-bone type expected from the do-nothing option. KDOT’s preferred right-in, right-out option would produce 10 percent fewer accidents than would be expected with leaving the intersection as is, and closing it would reduce the number of accidents from that benchmark by 26 percent.

Barrett conceded public comment received from 600 residents at a June 1 open house on the intersection and in an online survey conducted since that meeting favored the traffic signal option, while the right-in, right-out option ran third behind the do-nothing alternative.

Noting that the intersection was in his district, Flory said he supported the traffic signal that most of his constituents favored.

“I think if KDOT is looking for consensus, that is an alternative it could very easily get consensus on,” he said. “I feel confident it would have overwhelming support.”

Flory and City Commissioners Leslie Soden and Lisa Larsen favored a traffic signal along with a lowered speed limit on the K-10 west leg to 55 mph. In response, Weatherd said that could cause more accidents as some drivers continued to drive at higher speeds while others drove the speed limit. It also would require a traffic study with data available only after the east-leg of the SLT opened, he said.

Lawrence City Commissioner Stuart Boley challenged KDOT’s safety assumptions after Weatherd shared details of the right-on, right-off design, which would place tubular markers between K-10’s eastbound and westbound lanes. They would be flexible enough to not pose a threat to vehicles on the highway striking them and could be plowed over by emergency vehicles needing to cross K-10’s center line at the intersection, he said.

Boley said KDOT’s failure to consider accidents caused by motorists driving through the barriers to cross the K-10 center line was shortsighted.

“I think it’s more of a risk than signalization,” he said.

Although County Commissioner Mike Gaughan supported a signal because of its popularity with residents, he said he understood KDOT’s safety concerns. He also referred to the points County Public Works Director Keith Browning raised in a report last week to commissioners. Those were the need for a traffic signal at U.S. Highway 59 and County Road 458 and a new Wakarusa Drive separated grade intersection coupled with the extension of Wakarusa Drive south to County Road 458.

Weatherd said a separated grade intersection was planned to serve Wakarusa Drive when the K-10 west leg was expanded to four lanes, but agreed it could be built before that expansion with funding and the proper environmental studies. As for the U.S. 59 traffic signal, he said KDOT would continue to monitor the County Road 458 intersection that was close to meeting criteria for signalization.

Browning said after the meeting he was encouraged by the fact that Barrett and Lawrence City Commissioner Mike Amyx mentioned the need to extend Wakarusa Drive to the south. It would be the task of county commissioners to keep that need on the table, he said.

Barrett said at the conclusion of KDOT’s presentation that the department’s upper management would make a final decision on the intersection. Public comment and those of the commissioners would be forwarded for their consideration along with KDOT staff’s recommendation, he said.

Bids for work on the selected solution would be let in September and would be completed “concurrently” with the SLT’s opening.