Crews are scheduled to start melting strips of thermoplastic into the fresh pavement atop a new Leavenworth County Road 1 beginning Wednesday.

Once that striping is complete — by the end of the week, weather permitting — traffic will be free to drive unimpeded for the entire 5.62 miles between the intersection with U.S. Highway 24-40, just south of Tonganoxie, and the intersection with U.S. Highway 32.

Rex Fleming, project engineer for the Kansas Turnpike, said that the road’s wider lanes, roadside shoulders and safer driving profile would be ready for all traffic, once appropriate lane markings were in place.

But there’s still work to be done in the area. The turnpike’s new Tonganoxie-Eudora interchange, which connects to County Road 1, is scheduled to open by the end of the year.