County Commission supports request that KDOT maintain Kasold Drive access

Light traffic moves around the Kasold

Those opposed to the Kansas Department of Transportation’s plan to close access to Kansas Highway 10 from Kasold Drive won the support Wednesday of the Douglas County Commission.

That support, however, was tempered by expressed pessimism that a planned letter of support would change KDOT’s plan to eliminate Kasold Drive access to and from K-10. County commissioners were also supportive of greater KDOT planning to ensure future access to southwest Douglas County from K-10 when the highway is widened to four lanes, but did not endorse an alternative plan presented to them Wednesday.

KDOT currently is studying possible designs for an expansion of the South Lawrence Trafficway west of U.S. Highway 59 to Interstate 70. But there is no funding in place to expand the road, and KDOT officials have said the earliest the department could start on what it calls the West Leg K-10 Project would be 2020.

The group behind Wednesday’s request included Lawrence businessman Frank Male and his business Lawrence Landscape, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, Wakarusa Township Board of Trustees, Wakarusa Township Fire Department, Army Corps of Engineers at Clinton Lake and First Student Bus Service. The group sought a letter of support from the County Commission for short- and long-term alternatives to changes KDOT’s plans for the Kasold Drive intersection. The group also asked that the county support placement of a signal at County Road 458 and U.S. Highway 59.

Douglas County Public Works director Keith Browning had good news for the group on that last request. KDOT has agreed to place a light at the CR 458/U.S. 59 intersection, he said. A temporary light, which would be followed with comprehensive safety improvements to the intersection, would be in place before Kasold Drive access was eliminated in August, he said.

Browning also said KDOT would have a public information meeting in April on its Kasold Drive plans.

Speaking for the group, Male said it came as a surprise when in February KDOT announced it would close Kasold Drive access to and from K-10 with the completion of the South Lawrence Trafficway. The planned August closure was not among the design changes the department shared at public meetings concerning improvements that would come with the west K-10’s expansion to four lanes, he said.

Eliminating access at Kasold Drive would create a bottleneck for all of southwest Douglas County to and from Lawrence, lengthen emergency vehicle response times and put more traffic on the Clinton Dam road, which is not a county road and does not meet the county’s design standards, Male said.

View Map

As a short-term solution to KDOT’s plan to eliminate Kasold Drive access, the group asked the County Commission to support placement of a traffic-activated light on K-10 at Kasold Drive and a speed limit reduction from 65 to 55 mph from the U.S. 59 intersection west to a curve near Clinton Parkway.

Browning said a traffic signal at Kasold Drive and the speed limit change were highly unlikely to gain KDOT’s approval. There would be substantially more traffic on K-10 with the opening of the SLT, and it would be traveling at high speeds, he said. In the view of KDOT engineers, a traffic light at Kasold Drive about a mile from the point the highway narrowed from four to two lanes would increase the risk of rear-end collisions, he said.

County commissioners shared Browning’s pessimism and said they understood KDOT’s concerns, but nonetheless agreed to support the constituents’ requests.

There was less support for the group’s proposed long-term solution. The group proposed that a new separated-grade interchange be built on an East 1150 Road alignment about a half mile west of Kasold Drive as part of the West Leg K-10 Project improvements. The plan was “problematic,” Browning said, because it would require the “very expensive” elevated spanning of floodplains north and south of K-10 along the plan’s proposed extensions of East 1150 Road and 31st Street.

Browning suggested the county and city of Lawrence work with KDOT to extend Wakarusa Drive to the south in conjunction with the west leg improvements. Some extension of the road already was part of the KDOT plans for a new interchange to serve the Youth Sports Complex, he said.

That plan would replace the at-grade Wakarusa Drive intersection at the sports complex with an overpass, which would have no entry or exit ramps. Access to the sports complex would be through a new interchange to the southeast and would connect to Wakarusa Drive and the complex via a frontage road.

Wakarusa Drive was a good candidate for a future access road to the southwest part of the county because the floodplain along that route was much narrower, Browning said.

“I think there is a lot for the city and county to talk about with KDOT about a Wakarusa extension,” he said.

County commissioners instructed staff to draft a letter to KDOT for their review, which would ask the department to support maintaining K-10 access at Kasold Drive through a traffic-activated light, work with the local community about improving access to southwest Douglas County through the extension of Wakarusa Drive as part of the west leg upgrades and thanking the department for the planned signal light at U.S. 59 and CR 458.

Male and his group will now ask the Lawrence City Commission for its support of their proposals.

In other business, the County Commission:

• Learned a request to rezone 6.178 acres in the 1400 block of East 900 Road from B-3 to less restrictive B-2 zoning had been withdrawn. The Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission and county staff had recommend the County Commission deny the request.

• Approved extending a contract to $40,000 Braun Intertec for geotechnical engineering services at Lone Star Lake. Browning said the firm would investigate and recommend how to repair a small problem spot on the dam’s downstream face and make an overall assessment of the condition of the dam, which was built in the 1930s.