Kansas DOT interesting contract advertisements

[J N Winkler]

Huh? What does any of that have to do with abbreviating a street name?

Very little directly--but, if I understand you correctly, you were proposing that it be renamed "Shawnee Parkway" instead of a different way of abbreviating the existing name.  (Shawnee Mission is the name both of the first settlement in Johnson County and of the school district that covers most of northern Johnson County, and as such it is distinct from the city of Shawnee.)  My argument is simply that KDOT's days of making changes without local buy-in are over, at least for the time being.

[NE2]

Still, comparing a street renaming to substantial changes is silly.

And the parkway is almost entirely within the city of Shawnee.

[J N Winkler]

Still, comparing a street renaming to substantial changes is silly.

Street renamings are a local prerogative anyway, and can cause a big stink when instigated by the localities themselves, let alone when imposed from without by a powerful state agency.

And the parkway is almost entirely within the city of Shawnee.

I'll grant you that all of its grade-separated interchanges (with K-7, I-435, and I-35) are in Shawnee, but just 8.6 miles out of 13.8 are actually within the Shawnee city limits.  The road also runs through Overland Park, Mission, Fairway, Roeland Park, and Mission Hills.

[route56]

January, 2014

This month seems to be dedicated to bridge replacments

23 U 0161-01: New Traffic signal at 9th and Kentucky in Lawrence. Look for more FYAs here

69-46 K 8251-19: Seeding for the recently-completed project along 435 between Quivira and US 69, and on 69 between 435 and 119th.

24-75 KA 2080-01: Bridge replacement on US 24 east of Bellevue. Detour via shoo-fly

24-75 KA 2081-01: US 24 in St. Mary's.

4-89 KA 2089-01: K-4 in Western Shawnee County. Detour is via Valencia Road, 13th Street, and Glick Road. This is relatively unusual, as KDOT tends to avoid detours via non-state routes.

148-79 KA 2086-01: K-148 west of Agenda. Detour via US 81, US 36, and K-15.

59-1 KA 1772-01: US 59 northwest of Savonburg. Will be replaced one-half at a time, with traffic moving in a single lane controlled by signals.

69B1-19 KA 2617-01: Reconstruction of the Broadway/Centennial intersection in Pittsburg. Traffic carried through on Centennial during construction, but Broadway (US 69B) will be disrupted.

42-76 KA 2082-01: K-42 east of Sawyer. Detour via US 281, US 54, and K-14

135-87 KA 0733-01: Mill, overlay, and signage replacement on I-135 between the south junction of K-96 and Park City.

96 U 1651-01: 3rd Street over Hargis Creek in Wellington

94-29 KA 2061-01: K-94 ~2 miles south of the US 54 Junction. Detour via shoo-fly

63 C 0324-01: grading work on 4000 Road in Montgomery County

70-84 KA 2902-01: Lighting the soon-to-be Ex-US40B interchange east of Russell

281-5 KA 3119-01: New Signals and work at 24th and Main in Great Bend

35-96 T 0005-01: Mill and Overlay on the southern 10 miles of the Turnpike

[J N Winkler]

35-096 T 0005-01: Mill and Overlay on the southern 10 miles of the Turnpike

This caused me to wonder if KTA has begun cross-listing all of its contracts with KDOT.  This seems not to be the case--this particular project is being advertised by KDOT since it has a tie with a KDOT project, while KTA has several other projects (all fairly small) advertised with bid opening dates of January 14 for which plans and proposals must be purchased from KTA.

[Scott5114]

What is the difference between a "K" contract and a "KA" contract? I take it the "U" denotes a local project, but what does the U stand for? And what's a "Detour via shoo-fly"?

[J N Winkler]

What is the difference between a "K" contract and a "KA" contract? I take it the "U" denotes a local project, but what does the U stand for? And what's a "Detour via shoo-fly"?

Taking last question first--a shoo-fly (the term is borrowed from railroad usage) is a length of temporary roadway that bypasses the construction site.

The letter or letter group that falls within the middle of a KDOT project number is what KDOT calls a "jurisdiction identifier."  KA and K both mean the project is on the state highway system, even if it is not necessarily KDOT-administered (the various City of Wichita contracts to build the Kellogg freeway have, for example, all had implied K/KA project numbers even when these have not been inscribed on the title sheet; major Turnpike turnkey construction projects routinely have K/KA numbers as well).  KA is an overflow series since KDOT largely ran out of available K project numbers, and nowadays you are more likely to see KA rather than K because most of the turnkey projects KDOT has on the books have "aged out" of the K numbers.  One common exception, however, is signing contracts, which still have K numbers because KDOT is still using a special K-592X-YY numbering mask for them, where X is a digit between 0 and 9 (I don't know the rule for choosing it) and YY is the last two digits of the year.

Other jurisdiction identifiers that are in common use include C, U, and N, which all signify local control (C = county, U = city [urban], and N appears to be reserved for local-system traffic-related work); TE for transportation enhancement (roadside parks, station refurbishments, and the like); and T for Turnpike (this is new).  As is the case with the K/KA numbers, these are assigned whether KDOT actually administers the project or not.  The usual scenario for local-control jobs is that the city or county gets partial funding from KDOT, tenders draft plans to KDOT for review, and the finished plans bear both the number assigned by KDOT as well as the number, if any, assigned by the local agency.  Once KDOT approves the project, it may or may not be processed through KDOT's statewide letting.  I have suspected, but not been in a position to prove, that KDOT assigns project numbers to some activities carried out by its own forces.

I am not sure what the definitive reference is for jurisdiction identifiers--perhaps KDOT's Roadway Design Manual?  (The foregoing is based on what I remember from a short explanation kindly supplied several years ago by a KDOT employee on the now-vanished K-TOC site.)

As an aside, KDOT has run out of project numbers in the K series partly because it does not use the full six-digit width.  The first four digits are designed to signify a macro project, while the following two digits signify a subproject that is part of that macro project.  Most projects don't have more than one subpart (usually -01).  When a project has multiple subparts, KDOT usually charges planning-related activities to the -01 subpart while construction subparts get charged to higher numbers.  Taking the new K-18 freeway between K-114 and Manhattan as an example:

18-81 KA-0410-01

where

*  18 for route (K-18)

*  81 for county (Riley) (Kansas counties get their numbers in alphabetical order, beginning with 1 for Allen and ending with 105 for Wyandotte.  "106" means "Statewide."  Key county numbers include 46 for Johnson, 87 for Sedgwick, 89 for Shawnee, and 23 for Douglas)

*  0410 for macro project

*  01 for planning-related activities

Construction actually occurred under the KDOT project numbers 18-81 KA-0410-03 ("Ogden," including the K-18/K-114 trumpet-to-parclo conversion that removed a long-standing TOTSO on westbound K-18), 18-81 KA-0410-04 ("Scenic," so called because it includes an interchange for Scenic Drive, which is what Kimball Avenue becomes as you go west out of Manhattan and then south), and 18-81 KA-0410-05 ("Miller-Davis," so called because it includes a compact diamond interchange for Miller Drive and Davis Parkway).

What this means is that for any jurisdiction identifier, KDOT has only 10,000 possible choices for macro project number, though each choice of macro project number corresponds to up to 100 choices of subpart.  It is usually only for certain special types of contract (such as sign replacement) where subpart corresponds to a year that the subparts assigned form a substantial fraction of those available, though US 69 expansion in Johnson County (69-46 K-8251-01 et seqq.) has, last I checked (and as shown in Richie's last post), subpart numbers up to 19.

Edit:  KDOT's project numbering has one nasty gotcha--the jurisdiction identifiers all take their corresponding digit groups from separate pools.  I learned this the hard way when I attempted to file KDOT sign design sheets by digit group only and, about 100 projects later, came across separate K and U projects with the same digit group.

Another gotcha to watch out for with older KDOT projects (not current ones) is separate contracts under the same KDOT project number but with separate part numbers.  As an example, back in the 1980's and 1990's KDOT assigned the same project number with different part numbers to the two separate contracts (both administered by the City of Wichita) that built the Edwards-Seneca and downtown flyover portions of the Kellogg freeway:  one was 54-87 K-3371-02 part 1 while the other was 54-87 K-3371-02 part 2.

The current KDOT project numbering system dates from the late 1970's/early 1980's.  Prior to that KDOT and its predecessor agency used adaptations of the federal-aid numbering systems with route-county designations prepended to the FAP-like number.

[route56]

February, 2014

Once again, we have another group of Bridge Replacements up for letting.

170-070 KA 2076-01: K-170 east of Reading. Detour via K-31, US 56, and K-99

73-105 KA 2092-01: Southbound US 73/K-7 in Wyandotte County between Parrallel Parkway and Leavenworth Road. Traffic moving head-to-head in the northbound lanes.

28-045 KA 0022-01: K-28 east of Randall in Jewell County. Detour via US 81 and K-148.

169-030 KA 0734-02 and 169-061 KA 0735-02: Seeding on US 169 between the Franklin-Anderson County line and the start of the 4-lane freeway segment southwest of Osawatomie.

39-067 KA 2075-01: K-39/Elm Street on the east end of Chanute. Detour via Central Ave. and Main Street

2-039 KA 2063-01: K-2 between Hazelton and Anthony in Harper County. One lane traffic controlled by signal.

61-078 KA 2083-01: K-61 in Hutchinson. Two-lanes to maintained through construction.

70-106 KA 3359-01: Lighting Replacement at multiple interchanges in the Salina area. Although the prefix would imply that the interchanges are all on I-70, the project also covers interchanges on I-135/US 81.

19 C 4222-01: E. 530th Ave southeast of Pittsburg. No Marked Detour.

169-063 K 8241-05: Seeding on the completed US 169 expressway northeast of Coffeyville.

47-067 KA 0791-05 and 47-103 KA 0791-06: Seeding for K-47 between US 75 and US 169.

[route56]

March, 2014

Intersection reconstruction:
59-23 KA-2611-01: 23rd and Iowa in Lawrence: Full fledged double left turn lanes in all directions. I'm still trying to figure out how the new right turn lanes are going to work.

19 U-0065-01: 20th and Broadway (US 69B) in Pittsburg: Water line, sanitary sewer, and storm sewer upgrades, along with a new traffic signal. Broadway to remain open, 20th Street to be closed at times.

Bridge Replacement:
77-21 KA-2058-01: US 77 over the Flint Hills Nature trail (ex-MoPac Hosington Subdivision) in Herrington. Detour via US 56, K-149, and K-4

181-62 KA-2072-01: K-181 south of Hunter. Traffic carried on a one-lane shoo-fly detour.

36-79 KA-2084-01: US 36 east of Courtland. One lane of traffic carried through the work zone, controlled by signals.

81-96 KA-2090-01: US 81 south of Caldwell. One lane of traffic through the work zone.

50-38 KA-2062-01: US 50 east of Coolidge.  One lane of traffic through the work zone.

Major Bridge Repair:

435-46 KA-3172-01: I-435 over 87th Street in Lenexa. Two lanes of traffic in each direction to be maintained, and the ramps to 87th are to remain open.

70-89 KA-3169-01: I-70 Polk-Quincy Viaduct, as well as bridges over 3rd and 4th Streets, in Topeka. Traffic to move head-to-head during construction, with ramp closures at the 1st Street and 3rd Street interchanges. Thru traffic will be encouraged to either take I-470 or US-75/US-24/K-4.

670-105 KA-3188-01: I-670 westbound over 7th Street near the I-70 merge. Traffic to be reduced from 3 lanes to two.

Other:
36-66 KA-2610-01: Storm Sewer upgrade, curb-cut removal, and mill-overlay of North Street (US 36) in Seneca between 11th and 1st. Two lanes to be maintained through the work zone.

106 KA-2392-01: Installation of ITS in the Topeka area: A traffic camera on I-70 at K-99 near Alma, Two VMSs on Westbound I-470, one near 25th, the other near the Gage Blvd. Exit, and a VMS on Northbound US 75 south of 49th Street.

183-82 KA-3047-01: Full-depth reconstruction of Cedar Street (US 183) in Stockton between Main (US 24) and North 8th. Between Main and 2nd, two lanes of traffic can be maintained, but north of 2nd, the road will be reduced to one lane controlled by signals, and cross streets will be closed.

[apeman33]

March, 2014

Intersection reconstruction:
(snip).
19 U-0065-01: 20th and Broadway (US 69B) in Pittsburg: Water line, sanitary sewer, and storm sewer upgrades, along with a new traffic signal. Broadway to remain open, 20th Street to be closed at times.
(snip)

The intersection I go through each day to and from work. The signals need upgraded badly. One was upgraded a few years ago but I think that was only because a traffic accident destroyed the support pole.

Recently, a car hit another one of the posts and the signal had to be turned off while they repaired it. So even if it hadn't already been up for replacement, I think that particular damage would have forced a replacement anyway.

Also coming up soon is the pair of bridge replacements on K-39, which brings about one of the most convoluted detour routes I think I'm ever going to see.

[route56]

April, 2014:

Going strictly from Top to Bottom:

99-58 KA-2069-01: Bridge replacement between Frankfort and Beattie in Marshall County. Detour via K-9, K-87, and US 36.

18-53 KA 2067-01: Bridge replacement just east of Lincoln. *Long* detour via K-14, I-70, and US 81.

85 U 0066-01: Reconstruction of Ninth and Cloud in Salina. FYA is in play.

135-87 KA 0733-01: Major Preservation on I-135 between I-235/K-254 and 85th Street on the north side of Wichita. Includes new mainline signage.

635-105 KA-3588-01: Lighting replacement on I-635 at Merriam Drive in KCK.

40 KA-2619-01: Geometric improvements to the US 50/K-15 interchange in Newton. Basically, adding a turn lane and signals. Clearview Alert, Doghouse signals

15-21 KA 2612-01: Intersection improvements at 1st and Buckeye (K-15) in Abilene. No protected lefts.

27-100 KA-2615-01: Reconstruction on part of Main Street (K-27) in Sharon Springs.

[Ned Weasel]

Clearview Alert

When did KDOT start using Clearview?  I thought only the KTA did.

[J N Winkler]

Clearview Alert

When did KDOT start using Clearview?  I thought only the KTA did.

The only instance of Clearview in that particular contract is a couple of mast arm signs, presumably to conform to City of Newton standards.  There is also a typical KDOT destination-direction board which uses Series E Modified.

[WichitaRoads]

April, 2014:

Going strictly from Top to Bottom:

99-58 KA-2069-01: Bridge replacement between Frankfort and Beattie in Marshall County. Detour via K-9, K-87, and US 36.

18-53 KA 2067-01: Bridge replacement just east of Lincoln. *Long* detour via K-14, I-70, and US 81.

85 U 0066-01: Reconstruction of Ninth and Cloud in Salina. FYA is in play.

135-87 KA 0733-01: Major Preservation on I-135 between I-235/K-254 and 85th Street on the north side of Wichita. Includes new mainline signage.

635-105 KA-3588-01: Lighting replacement on I-635 at Merriam Drive in KCK.

40 KA-2619-01: Geometric improvements to the US 50/K-15 interchange in Newton. Basically, adding a turn lane and signals. Clearview Alert, Doghouse signals

15-21 KA 2612-01: Intersection improvements at 1st and Buckeye (K-15) in Abilene. No protected lefts.

27-100 KA-2615-01: Reconstruction on part of Main Street (K-27) in Sharon Springs.

An FYA in Salina? Holy hell. They can't handle RYG!

ICTRds (and SALRds due to family)

[route56]

May, 2013

10-23 KA 1826-01: This is the interchange on the existing western leg of the SLT at Bob Billings Parkway

23 U 0162-01: Resurfacing of 9th Street from Avalon Road to Arkansas Street. Configuration to be changed from 4 lanes to 3, with bike lanes in each direction. The left turn signal for Emery road will be redone with a FYA

25-47 KA 2065-01: Bridge replacement in Kearny County. Traffic to utilize a one-lane shoofly detour.

105 N 0555-01: Reconstruction of Merriam Drive in KCK, with a new signal at 14th/Roe Ln. MUTCD '09 violation: Use of Doghouse signal for a dedicated left turn lane -- and there are FYA signals in KCK proper

87 C 0417-01: Bridge Replacment on 87th Street between Ridge and Hoover in Wichita. No Marked Detour

75-89 KA 3654-01: Repair to a sign truss/removal of a walkway on a sign truss near the US 75/US 24 interchange in North Topeka. Does not include new signage.

435-105 KA 3583-01: Replace a cantilever on I-435 southbound at Leavenworth Road, and a sign truss on Parallel Parkway at I-435.

35-105 KA 3587-01: Replace a cantilever on I-35 at the 18th Street Expressway

54-8 KA 2212-01: Heavy Preservation between Andover and Augusta.

[route56]

June 2013

046 KA-3060-01: KC Scout improvments in Johnson County: Mostly additional VMS and detector loops for K-7, however, there is a RAMP METER slated for US 69 and 135th Street.

435-46 KA-3293-01: Signage replacements along I-435 and I-635 in Johnson county, except between 95th Street and US 69 on 435. Despite their best efforts, I see dancing arrows (the arrows for the left and right lanes are explicitly marked as 15 degrees off vertical)

99-58 KA-2070-01: Bridge replacement northeast of Beattie. Traffic controlled through the work zone by signal.

99-25 KA-2060-01: Bridge replacement south of Moline. Traffic carried on a shoo-fly detour.

15-18 KA 2057-01: Two simultaneous bridge replacements between US 166 and Dexter. Traffic carried on shoo-fly detours.

C-4391-02: Mulvane "Safe Routes to School"  program: New sidewalks plus the addition of crosswalks and pedestrian signals on K-15 and Rock Road.

4-99 KA-2476-01: Two Bridge replacements south of Alma. Traffic carried on a shoo-fly detour.

69-105 KA-1180-06: Bridge repair (specifically, gusset strengthening and drainage system repairs) on the 18th Street Expressway bridge over the Kansas River in KCK.

59 C-4325-01 and 59 C-4326-01: Two bridge replacements on old US 81 in McPherson County. (there are several other County Road bridge replacements in this letting.... I elected to skip past ones not involving current or former state highways) Old 81 will be closed during construction.

106 KA-3058-01: ITS improvements, mainly along the I-70 corridor, but also in two locations along US 81.

[Scott5114]

Looking through 435-46 KA-3293-01...looks like typical good work of KDOT. Most signs are substantially the same as the older demountable-copy signage being replaced.

This will correct the big-caps-tiny-lowercase error on the Harry Darby sign on NB I-635.

On I-435: "Sh Mn Pky" is back. Interestingly enough, sheet 38 shows a sign being erected on Missouri soil (it's a *47 service sign).

[route56]

On I-435: "Sh Mn Pky" is back. Interestingly enough, sheet 38 shows a sign being erected on Missouri soil (it's a *47 service sign).

Not to Mention a sign for a Missouri exit (Wornall) on the Kansas Side.