photo by: Bremen Keasey

A photo of traffic from the corner of Ninth Street and Ohio Street in Lawrence on Friday around noon. City commissioners will hear a proposal Tuesday night that could drop the street from four to three lanes for cars and add a bike lane.

City commissioners have voted in favor of a proposed “road diet” that would reduce the number of lanes for cars along a portion of Ninth Street between downtown Lawrence and the University of Kansas and add protected bike lanes.

At their meeting Tuesday, commissioners reviewed the plan that would redesign Ninth Street from Illinois Street to Vermont Street and voted 4-1 to recommend that it proceed. Commissioner Brad Finkeldei was the lone no vote. Currently, the section has four lanes of motor vehicle traffic — two in each direction — and no center turning lane. The redesign would have one lane of traffic going westbound, one lane going eastbound and a turning lane in the middle while adding bike lanes on each side until Kentucky Street. Portions of the lane would be separated from vehicle traffic with some sections using physical “Zebra” dividers.

The commission did recommend one potential change — that city staff should evaluate whether there was a need for a right turn lane heading eastbound on Ninth Street to turn onto Mississippi Street, especially with the potential traffic increase from the University of Kansas’ Gateway Project.

In addition to making a recommendation on the lane configurations for Ninth Street, the commission amended the city’s Capital Improvement Plan, moving $139,000 in unused funds from a pavement marking project so that it would be available for the work on Ninth Street.

Nick Hoyt, Lawrence’s lead program manager on this project, presented the details of the proposed redesign of Ninth Street from Illinois Street to Vermont Street, which was unanimously recommended by the Multi-Modal Transportation Commission back in August, as the Journal-World reported.

Hoyt said Ninth Street has lots of places for switching lanes, and many times people can pass by cars attempting to turn at high speeds. Hoyt added that this portion has been identified as one of the most dangerous stretches of road in Douglas County.

“It makes for a dangerous situation and there has been a long history of documented accidents,” Hoyt said.

Hoyt said the city asked multiple groups to do traffic studies on the street, which found a consensus that three lanes would be the same traffic flow as the road currently sees.

One public commenter expressed concern about the potential loss of parking for businesses along the street. Hoyt had said that after talking with some stakeholders of the plan, the city promised some street parking would stay on the north side of the street.

Multiple public commenters expressed support for the plan, advocating for the protected bike lanes. William Steele said he rides down that stretch of Ninth Street about once a week, but said he fears for his safety on the road — making a sign of the cross every time he has to ride on it.

“People drive way too fast. It is very unsafe to ride a bike,” Steele said.

Steele said he thinks protected bike lanes would be a “game changer” for cyclists in the city and could attract more people to businesses in the area.

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

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.

The massive project would improve stormwater infrastructure in the area. Hoyt said the city hopes to bid the project out in 2025 and start portions of the plan on Eighth and Tennessee Streets that year. Most of the work around Ninth Street would be under construction for most of 2026, which is what led to exploring making the street more accessible to bicycles and other forms of transportation.

Commissioner Lisa Larsen said she supported the reconfiguration, and said she was excited to see it potentially “go into action” with the project. Commissioner Mike Dever said although he was worried about some of the possible “unintended consequences,” he supported the plan as a biker and hopes that it can be a good place for the city to experiment and see the results of new ideas.

“This isn’t a lot of money to invest in potentially important improvements,” Dever said.

In other business, commissioners:

Voted unanimously to approve a special use permit for the construction of a new 26,275-square-foot public safety building near the Douglas County Jail.

Plans for the new building — which would serve as a headquarters for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, the 911 dispatch center and the county’s emergency management center — are also tied in with adding a 57,000-square-foot addition of the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center in downtown Lawrence.

The designs of those two projects were approved by the Douglas County Commission in May with an estimated cost of $74 million. The proposed expansion and new building would create space for more courtrooms, judges’ chambers, conference rooms and more at the JLEC.

The item was initially on the consent agenda — a group of items approved by a single vote — but was pulled for discussion by a member of the public. Multiple public commenters opposed to the project then spoke. Finkeldei said that because the project followed city zoning rules, the commission had to remain “content neutral” in granting the permit.

The next step in the process would be for the Douglas County Commission to vote to officially approve the two projects.

• Approved the memorandum of understanding between the city and the local firefighters union, International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1596.

The two sides ratified the employment agreement, which will start in the new year and run until Dec. 31, 2017, last week.

Some of the highlights of the agreement include a pay plan that increases starting wages, increases the pay rate for off-duty employees who respond to an emergency and provides cancer insurance to union employees paid for by the city.

The agreement will add $1.3 million to the city’s 2025 budget, and the city notes that about $390,000 will need to be offset from the budget in the future.