photo by: City of Lawrence

A City of Lawrence map shows a proposed extension of Wakarusa Drive, in yellow at lower left, which would connect the roadway to County Route 458.

A local environmental advocacy group is expressing concerns about a proposed project that would extend Wakarusa Drive south of Lawrence through an undeveloped area and build a bridge over the Wakarusa River.

The Lawrence branch of the Sunrise Movement held an informational meeting Thursday at the Lawrence Public Library to discuss the project, which is included in long-term transportation plans and scheduled to move forward soon. Mattie Bell, Sunrise’s Lawrence hub coordinator and a member of the Sustainability Advisory Board, told the Journal-World after the meeting that the group has concerns about how it will affect the river and the environment, as well as about transparency regarding the project.

“We are not in favor of a road to nowhere that opens the door for expansion into a wildlife highway and over a river,” Bell said.

The $10.3 million project — about $4.1 million of which would be paid for by the city and $6.2 million by the county — would extend Wakarusa Drive south from its intersection with the South Lawrence Trafficway, where the roadway currently ends. Preliminary plans call for the extension to travel south from a new roundabout, which is being built near the Youth Sports Complex as part of the state-funded expansion of the SLT, and then curve around a bend in the Wakarusa River before ultimately crossing the river to link up with County Route 458 (North 1200 Road).

The Wakarusa Drive extension has been included in the city’s long-term transportation plans and was moved into the city’s Capital Improvement Plan after the closure of Kasold Drive (East 1200 Road) at the SLT, according to a recent city staff memo. City staff recently said the extension would improve connectivity, noting that after Kasold was closed — the Kansas Department of Transportation closed it in 2018 due to accidents — the only routes from Lawrence to the area south of the city have been the Clinton Lake dam road or Iowa Street/U.S. 59.

Mayor Courtney Shipley, who attended the meeting, recently voted against a city funding commitment to KDOT that included the project. Shipley expressed environmental concerns and also took issue with the proposal because the most recent comprehensive plan for Lawrence and Douglas County, Plan 2040, does not call for the city to expand into that area within the plan’s timeframe.

“My concern was that this road has no purpose, and that it’s going to a place outside the growth area, so it will encourage growth in an area we are not trying to encourage,” Shipley told the Journal-World ahead of the meeting.

Shipley told meeting attendees that just because the project has been in planning for a long time doesn’t mean it can’t be revisited, especially given the city’s plans for growth in other areas. In addition to Plan 2040, she noted that at the same meeting where the extension was recently discussed, the commission indicated it was ready for the city to expand west of the SLT, a move that staff estimated would require more than $100 million in infrastructure and service needs.

“Why would we spend money on this road?” Shipley asked. “It’s going the wrong direction.”

Shipley also said that the area seems like a good candidate for green space preservation, and that she would like to see Douglas County finish its ongoing process of identifying green space that needs protecting before the city commits to building a road there.

Other meeting attendees also questioned the logic of the extension. Jim Carpenter, a member of the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission, said the area in question is not included in the area development plans within Plan 2040, and instead lies between two plan areas, one for west of the SLT and the southern development plan. Carpenter, who noted he was not speaking for the Planning Commission, said the proposal surprised him.

“It’s quite a surprise,” Carpenter said. “So it’s really not something that I as a six-year member of the Planning Commission was aware of, so I’m curious about how we got to where we are.”

Nick Kuzmyak, a member of the city’s Multi-Modal Transportation Commission, who was also just speaking for himself, said he thought the project failed on multiple counts — environmentally, financially and politically — due to the lack of clarity regarding why the project was being moved forward. Michael Almon, a member of the Sustainability Action Network, said he was concerned the extension would encourage development and sprawl in that area.

Sunrise laid out other objections, including the expense to construct and maintain the extension and that the project was proposed long ago and is not reflective of today’s climate concerns. Bell said Sunrise is interested in government transparency and what decisions are being made regarding the climate crisis, and that the extension was an important issue that deserved more public outreach.

Though Shipley was the only one to vote against a recent motion that included the project, two other commissioners also expressed some concerns.

The Lawrence City Commission voted 4-1 on May 17 to authorize the city manager to submit a letter of commitment to KDOT for the local match for the lane expansion of the SLT. The approximately $7 million city match is made up of funding for multiple locally funded road projects related to the expansion, and Shipley was opposed to including funding to extend Wakarusa Drive in the local match, as the Journal-World previously reported. Vice Mayor Lisa Larsen said she supported the letter of commitment but that she also had “really strong reservations” about extending Wakarusa Drive, and Commissioner Bart Littlejohn said he agreed with Larsen.

The commission allocated $500,000 for the design of the extension in its 2022 Capital Improvement Plan, which was decided as part of the budget process last summer, but Shipley said she is not aware of any of that money being spent yet. The commission is scheduled to discuss its CIP for 2023 on June 21.