photo by: Bremen Keasey

Traffic at the corner of 14th and Kentucky streets on Wednesday, June 25, 2025.

For years, multimodal transportation advocate Bill Steele says, Lawrence has lagged behind some of its peers on bike infrastructure. It’s spent more money on projects for cars, he said, and its streets are “overbuilt.”

But he and other members of the Sustainability Action Network think they have a fix: Just build city streets a little less for cars — sometimes with fewer motor vehicle lanes — and add a new, protected lane for bikes.

Already, the city has approved projects that would add protected bike lanes along major streets, including on a span of Ninth Street near downtown (expected to happen in 2026) and along Massachusetts Street from 14th to 23rd streets. But Steele has some other targets in mind to improve Lawrence’s bike infrastructure — projects on the city’s two big one-way streets his group pushed for in the city’s Capital Improvement Plan.

“There’s lots of room for improvement,” Steele said. “But we could catch up quickly.”

It was Steele and the Sustainability Action Network who requested that a plan to add protected bike lanes along Kentucky and Tennessee streets from Sixth to 19th streets be included in the CIP, which is a sort of blueprint for infrastructure projects in the community. The proposal would reduce both roads from two lanes for motor vehicles to one lane, move the on-street parking spots from the right side of the street to the left, and put a bike lane on the right side with a 3-foot buffer between it and the motor vehicle traffic.

Even though the proposal is included in the CIP, it’s not currently recommended to receive funding. But Steele believes the idea is a sensible proposal that could help the city in multiple ways.

“(It) can help the city meet its road safety goals and protect city streets,” Steele said.

Both Kentucky and Tennessee streets were identified in the city’s Vision Zero Transportation Safety Action Plan, which was approved earlier this month, as locations that were more likely to have car accidents that resulted in injuries or fatalities. Steele said the two roads were first designed in the 1940s or 1950s as “one-way expressways” that run right through neighborhoods, and because each street has two lanes, drivers are more likely to speed through it.

According to a city information packet, the projected cost for the plan would be $886,540, though Steele believes it would actually be cheaper than that. The city already has plans to repave those two streets in 2027, and Steele said the redesign could coincide with that, which he thinks would make the costs lower. Steele thinks it would be a cost-effective option to make progress toward the city’s long-term goal of zero fatal crashes.

“Here is a chance to put our money where our mouth is,” Steele said.

Additionally, Steele said data indicates that the traffic volume on those streets is not enough to warrant more than one lane. According to the Kansas Department of Transportation’s latest traffic count done in 2023, Tennessee Street’s average daily traffic between Sixth and 19th streets was 6,477, with Kentucky Street’s being about the same. Steele said the rule of thumb for traffic volume is that roads can handle about 10,000 vehicles per lane per day, so these two streets are well below that threshold.

During the last City Commission meeting, Commissioner Lisa Larsen and Vice Mayor Brad Finkeldei said they were intrigued by the possibility of the project, but wanted to first see the result of the city’s plans to add protected lanes in other areas. Steele said he understands their concerns, but he feels if the city doesn’t explore this option, it might be another decade before any changes to the one-way streets could be done.

“We can’t wait and see,” Steele said. “(These streets) are in the core of the city, and they are ripe for modernization.”

After a long time of not seeing much progress on multimodal projects, Steele said he can see a “glimmer of hope” on those efforts in the city. Currently, Lawrence is designated as a “Bronze Level” Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists, a national nonprofit that advocates and lobbies for bike-related projects. Steele said Lawrence has been “stuck” at its current designation for decades, but adding new bike lanes can elevate the city’s status — and open up more funding options for expanding the network further.

Steele said he’s seen residents express excitement about the proposal, and the Oread Neighborhood Association supports it. As in other peer cities — including Kansas City, Mo., which Steele said has added 15 miles of bike lanes a year in recent years — he hopes this project could be a spark to promote transportation options in the city other than cars.

“This could propel us further and open up more options for transportation for everyone,” Steele said.