photo by: Journal-World

The west side of the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St.

The Douglas County Commission will soon consider partnering with the City of Lawrence to commit nearly $14 million in combined local funds toward further expansion of the South Lawrence Trafficway, one of several topics on their meeting agenda for this week.

The planned improvement would expand the west leg of the highway, a section of Kansas Highway 10 that runs along Lawrence’s southern border, to four lanes from Iowa Street to the Kansas Turnpike. It’s also on the Lawrence City Commission’s agenda for its meeting on Tuesday night, and both bodies will decide whether to submit a letter of commitment to the Kansas Department of Transportation necessary for the work to move forward.

This is the latest in a series of projects with the overarching goal of expanding and improving the SLT, which was included in a list of future KDOT projects about two years ago.

The latest improvement is set to be divided into two projects. One of them — the only one described in the meeting’s agenda materials, and referred to as the “-03 project” — checks in at an estimated cost of $124,000,000, and KDOT is seeking a 10% local funding match to support it. Specifically, the -03 project will improve the highway from Iowa Street to Sixth Street and will address an improvement at the intersection at Wakarusa and 27th streets.

The latter area has been a concern in recent years and underwent some less-extensive work in 2020 to help curb a spate of traffic accidents.

If the city and county commit to their respective funding contributions — $6,985,024 from the city and $6,882,582 from the county — construction on the project could begin as soon as late 2024.

The funding match can be represented in the form of locally funded improvement projects related to the highway work, so that contribution would also target several smaller, concurrent projects. Some of them include extending Wakarusa Drive south across the Wakarusa River to North 1200 Road; replacing a county bridge on East 1200 Road; and city improvements to Clinton Parkway north of 27th Street.

In other business:

• During a work session, the commission will hear more about the findings of the Douglas County Homelessness Needs Assessment. That study was approved in fall 2021 and contracted with the University of Kansas Center for Public Partnerships and Research.

• Commissioners will discuss the review process for a petition to incorporate the city of Clearfield, currently an unincorporated community located 9 miles northeast of Baldwin City. Area residents filed that petition in late March, and the next substantial step in the process is a public hearing set for June 15.

Wednesday’s work session will begin at 4 p.m., and the regular business meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St. The meeting also will be available by Zoom. For meeting information, visit the county’s website: dgcoks.org/commissionmeetings.