(Kansas) T-WORKS project announcements

[J N Winkler]

Governor Brownback and KDOT Secretary Deb Miller were in Wichita this morning announcing the major south-central Kansas projects to be built as part of T-WORKS (the third ten-year major highway program since 1989).  Announcements are being archived here:

http://www.ksdot.org/t-works/

Project list is here:

http://www.ksdot.org/t-works/documents/SCLISTFinal.pdf

For me, the biggest surprise was that the US 54 Kingman Bypass (which was in design) appears to have been shelved.  It also appears that US 54 will not be upgraded to a continuous freeway all the way from west of Kingman to Greensburg, but KDOT is determined (wisely, IMO) to defend four lanes divided as the minimum cross-section for this corridor.  With KDOT's current approach to access management, future upgrades to full freeway should continue to be possible at reasonably low cost.

Personally, I find it annoying that these announcements seem to have been saved for the governor's tour around the state.  The Santa Claus approach makes sense when the things being given are gifts, but a taxpayer-funded agency should be above it.

[situveux1]

I see the K-96 project between Hutchinson and Sterling mentions it as a possible first step to the "Northwest Passage." At some point I thought I had seen something on KDOT's website that outlined upgrading K-96 to four lanes from Hutchinson to Great Bend, but going through Lyons rather than bypassing it with a more direct route to Great Bend. Does anybody know if this is still the case? We recently moved to Hays so I'll selfishly advocate for a more direct northwest/southeast road.

[route56]

The Southeast Kansas project list is up:

http://www.ksdot.org/t-works/documents/SE-LIST-Final.pdf

Southeast Kansas appears to have more of an evaluation and rebuilding tone to it than the Wichita area. The main project appears to be upgrading US 69 between Arma and Fort Scott to a four-lane upgradable expressway. The other four-lane expansion will be US 166/400 near the state line (which requires MoDOT's help)

Also, it appears that US 169 south of Garnett will be given wider shoulders and K-7 between Columbus and Cherokee will be completely rebuilt.

[J N Winkler]

North-central Kansas is now up too:

http://www.ksdot.org/t-works/documents/NC-List-Final.pdf

The biggest single project--finishing the K-18 freeway upgrade into Manhattan--in the list has in fact been advertised for construction already (April 2011).  (I think the relevant project numbers are 18-81 KA-0410-04 and -05.)  With the exception of K-18, the new I-135 interchange in McPherson, and the possibility of a four-lane expansion of US 77 just west of Junction City, everything is either shoulder improvements or passing lane construction.  I don't like the US 77 four-lane idea because Junction City has been expanding westward to the US 77 corridor, so there is real potential for this to become a stoplight-infested mess.

[ShawnP]

Looks so much better than any plan the good shop Loolipop aka MODOT has on the shelf.

[J N Winkler]

ShawnP's words are kind, but today's T-WORKS announcements--for western Kansas--bear the unmistakable stink of fiscal constraint.  There are two separate lists, for NW and SW Kansas:

http://www.ksdot.org/t%2Dworks/documents/NWListFinal%20.pdf

http://www.ksdot.org/t%2Dworks/documents/SWListFinal.pdf

The only two four-laning improvements are both in SW Kansas:  US 54 just NE of Liberal for ten miles, and US 50 from Cimarron to Dodge City.  Lengths of US 83 will also receive passing lanes, but about half of the tabulated projects are actually preliminary engineering for improvements which will have to receive construction funding in a later program.  In NW Kansas, the only improvements planned are shoulder upgrades and alignment improvements, including on K-383 (former US 383, and erroneously referred to as "US-383" in one of Secretary Miller's email broadcasts).  KDOT is also stepping back from full corridor improvement for K-27 and doing just the bad curves south of Sharon Springs.

[route56]

Unfortunately, I'm scheduled to work on Friday, so I can't make it to the final presentation - Northeast Kansas.

Improvements for US 69 from I-435 to 119th, along with 435 from 69 to Quivera, have already been announced and let. I'd be surprised if funding for completing the SLT (as either super-2 or all four lanes) was not included. Other than that, I don't know what will come of tommorow's presentation.

[J N Winkler]

Northeast Kansas = cat + cream.  (But I'm a Wichita-based cynic.)

My guess is that they will announce:

*  Kansas Speedway improvements (currently in design)

*  Johnson County Gateway (as a nod toward austerity, they will probably mention that a direct connector has been omitted so that the I-35/I-435 cloverstack will not be converted into a full stack)

*  I-35/Homestead Lane DDI improvement

*  Last mile of K-18 in Manhattan (already announced with the North Central stuff, but apparently the K-18 freeway straddles a dividing line between North Central and Northeast)

*  K-7 expansion to upgradable expressway (again, as a nod to austerity, they will probably say they are not building it as a freeway from the get-go, although KDOT has wrapped up construction on a roundabout interchange at Johnson Drive)

*  SLT (yes, I too would be surprised if it were not announced), as a full four-lane freeway

*  Shoulder bus lanes on I-35 (probably sold as "making better use of existing assets" and "intermodalism")

[ShawnP]

Hopefully they don't "MODOT" on the I-35/I-435/K-10 rebuild. That would mean cheaping it to the point that it is obselote from the minute the last concrete cures (aka KC Icon and that d@mn left hand exit at The Paseo).

[Scott5114]

ShawnP's words are kind, but today's T-WORKS announcements--for western Kansas--bear the unmistakable stink of fiscal constraint

KDOT's "fiscal constraint" could still beat ODOT's splurging on the worst day.

[ShawnP]

I can understand not spending much money on Western Kansas. That area is soooooooooooo rural and money should go to the Population Centers.

[J N Winkler]

Yes, money has to follow need, and given that the freeway lane mileage needed to maintain a good LOS across a metropolitan area increases faster than population or built-up land area, a convincing case could be made that Kansas City needs to get most of the transportation spending in Kansas, with Wichita and Topeka getting just pittances while the rest of the state gets absolutely nothing beyond routine upkeep.

There is an issue of parity though.  Wichita depends on a sales tax increment to fund improvements to Kellogg, which is KDOT infrastructure but largely neglected in KDOT capital budgeting (the last project KDOT has "owned" has been the West Street SPUI, which was finished around 1988).  The K-96 Northeast Freeway is also KDOT-owned but was built jointly by the city of Wichita and Sedgwick County.  The I-235/13th Street bridge, which is currently in design, is also a city of Wichita project and is funded largely by the sales tax increment.  When the public information meeting on this project was held back in January, the only personnel clearly identified by nametag as part of the project were with HNTB or the City of Wichita.  Tom Hein (who handles Wichita-area public affairs for KDOT) was there but without nametag.  The city of Wichita has also done most of the legwork on US 54/Webb Road although KDOT has claimed it for T-WORKS probably because, uncharacteristically, they are contributing a greater share of the funding.

Meanwhile, northeast Kansas gets all of these gifts from KDOT--K-7 expansion, K-10 expansion, new freeway lengths on US 59, US 69, and US 169, Kansas Speedway stuff, US 69 Overland Parkway expansion.  If the localities are using sales tax increments to fund any of these, I am unaware of it.

Edit:  Northeast Kansas improvements are now up on the KDOT website:

http://www.ksdot.org/t-works/documents/NE-List-Final.pdf

Every one of my predictions came true, with these additions and exceptions:

*  US 69 Overland Parkway improvements (ongoing, latest contract advertised for a May 2011 letting and mentioned in the "interesting contract advertisements" thread for Kansas on this board) are listed

*  US 24 expressway in Shawnee County, including an interchange at Menoken Road

*  K-31 Osage County alignment and shoulder improvement

*  I-70 Polk-Quincy viaduct in Topeka (currently site of a curve on mainline I-70 signed for, IIRC, 40 or 45 MPH)--engineering only

*  Centennial Bridge in Leavenworth--KTA may be asked to charge tolls on it

*  Aside from the Kansas Speedway job, no work has been announced for K-7:  corridor improvements seem to be on hold

*  Shoulder bus lanes on I-35 have not been announced

There is a piece of bad news.  KDOT is proposing to do the "Orange" portion of the Johnson County Gateway project (valued at $249 million) as a design-build contract.  This means that there will be no letting plans for this project, and therefore no signing plans without having to do an open records request, unless KDOT follows the example of Indiana DOT, PennDOT, and some other state DOTs and puts up a conceptual signing plan as part of the design-build RFP documentation.

[route56]

http://www.ksdot.org/t-works/documents/NE-List-Final.pdf

Every one of my predictions came true, with these additions and exceptions:

*  US 69 Overland Parkway improvements (ongoing, latest contract advertised for a May 2011 letting and mentioned in the "interesting contract advertisements" thread for Kansas on this board) are listed

*  US 24 expressway in Shawnee County, including an interchange at Menoken Road

*  K-31 Osage County alignment and shoulder improvement

*  I-70 Polk-Quincy viaduct in Topeka (currently site of a curve on mainline I-70 signed for, IIRC, 40 or 45 MPH)--engineering only

*  Centennial Bridge in Leavenworth--KTA may be asked to charge tolls on it

*  Aside from the Kansas Speedway job, no work has been announced for K-7:  corridor improvements seem to be on hold

*  Shoulder bus lanes on I-35 have not been announced

There is a piece of bad news.  KDOT is proposing to do the "Orange" portion of the Johnson County Gateway project (valued at $249 million) as a design-build contract.  This means that there will be no letting plans for this project, and therefore no signing plans without having to do an open records request, unless KDOT follows the example of Indiana DOT, PennDOT, and some other state DOTs and puts up a conceptual signing plan as part of the design-build RFP documentation.

Looks like Shoulder Bus Lanes are to be let in August... probably separate from T-WORKS. The project numbers are KA-2324-01 and KA-2324-02

Also, it looks like KDOT in interested in the feasibility of placing tolls on part of the SLT.

The curve on the east end of the P-Q viaduct, BTW, has a 45 MPH advisory speed.

[Revive 755]

Also, it looks like KDOT in interested in the feasibility of placing tolls on part of the SLT.

Dang, there goes my shunpike route from KC to at least Lawrence.

[route56]

You DO know that we have a little bit of litigation to here settle before we can put the SLT up for letting

[mightyace]

I can understand not spending much money on Western Kansas. That area is soooooooooooo rural and money should go to the Population Centers.

As long as Western Kansas gets enough money for the roads it does have.

[Sykotyk]

With the amount of truck traffic on US54 from Liberal to at least Pratt, it needs to be four-laned. Passing is damn near impossible except the few passing lane portions.