photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Lawrence City Hall

In a couple of years, a major street in Lawrence could have a major facelift.

The Multi-Modal Transportation Commission unanimously voted on Monday to recommend a plan to redesign Ninth Street from Illinois Street to Vermont Street. The plan would drop Ninth Street’s traffic flow from four lanes of cars to three lanes and add bike lanes on each side until Kentucky Street.

The design would have one lane of traffic going westbound, one lane going eastbound and a turning lane in the middle. On both eastbound and westbound directions, there would be bike lanes separated from vehicle traffic, with some sections using physical “Zebra” dividers.

Commission Chairman Nick Kuzmyak expressed enthusiasm about the design proposed by the city staff.

“By and large, this is a great design,” Kuzmyak said.

The change would happen after part of the Jayhawk Watershed Improvement project in the area to help improve a heavily flood-prone storm water system is completed.

As the Journal-World has reported, a study of the Jayhawk Watershed completed in 2022 by JEO Consulting Group recommended four projects, estimated to cost $32 million, to increase the amount of rainwater the system can handle and reduce neighborhood flooding in the area.

This initial project to improve the stormwater project in the area will replace the existing stone culvert with a reinforced concrete box from just north of Eighth and Tennessee streets to Ninth and Indiana streets. The massive project — projections from a city memo say the stormwater improvements would start in 2025 and Ninth Street would be expected to be under construction for the whole of 2026 — led city staff to see if there were ways to add more multi-modal transit to the street.

In the meeting, the members had back-and-forth with the lead program manager for the city, Nick Hoyt, about some of the details of the design, like where to have certain bike lanes and what to do with some parallel parking spots left by the plans. Dave Cronin, a city engineer with the Municipal Services & Operation department, said because of that timeline and recognizing the lane shifts would be a “major change,” the focus of this step was on the big picture instead of the minor details.

Although the reconstruction of the street will be covered by the funds set aside for the Jayhawk Watershed Improvements, the addition of new bike lanes and traffic-calming measures is estimated to cost $200,000, which would be allocated from the five-year plan for Non-Motorized Projects in 2025.

Now that the MMTC recommended this plan for approval, it will go next to the City Commission.