photo by: Bremen Keasey

Traffic cones lining the outside lanes on North Second/Third Street in North Lawrence. City staff said they expect asphalt resurfacing to start soon on project, which is expected to finish by November.

Roadwork projects on a couple main arteries in Lawrence are closing in on completion later this fall, with Municipal and Service Operations staff saying work on North Second/Third Street and Sixth Street will be finished in November.

Aaron Parker, a senior project manager with the MSO working on the project, said the majority of curb and gutter maintenance on North Second/Third Street is complete, and the repaving project is still on track to be finished in November despite some minor delays.

The project in North Lawrence has reduced the street to two lanes from the railroad overpass to the I-70 entrance since August as the outer lanes have been closed to work the curb maintenance.

Parker said through emailed responses the contractors needed to work on the concrete curbs before any of the paving asphalt went down. Parker said 95% of the curb and gutter replacement — work done to help improve stormwater drainage on the street — have been completed.

Along with that work along the curbs, Parker said a ramp meeting Americans with Disabilities Act requirements and a pedestrian push button upgrade is underway at the intersection of North Second Street and North Lyon Street.

Parker said stormwater work is still being completed in the north portion of the section closer to the underpass. The milling of the outer lanes is slated to start this week.

The resurfacing will happen first in the outside lanes that are already closed. Once those are finished, the traffic will be re-routed to the outside lanes so the inside lanes can be resurfaced.

While the roadwork on Sixth Street from Forks Road to Iowa Street is now complete, the project from Iowa Street east to Massachusetts Street should be finished by Thanksgiving, according to Steven Lashley, project manager with the MSO working on the project.

Lashley said through emailed responses that the multi-phased maintenance project, which included multiple stormwater improvements along the route including installing a 66-inch diameter tunnel about 20 feet deep between Missouri Street and Arkansas Street, has nearly all the stormwater work complete and “95%” of traffic signal installation done.

The project also has sidewalk improvements, including the installation of a path from the McDonald Drive exit — currently closed with the construction — to Wisconsin Street on the northern portion of Sixth Street.

Lashley said that the last major work phase in the stretch will start with milling the road before patching stretches and repaving the asphalt. Lashley said the outside lanes will be closed first once the paving gets underway, and there will always be a minimum of one lane open going each direction.