Kansas Turnpike

[BigMattFromTexas]

Ive been on the Kansas Turnpike many times and i was just wondering yall's thoughts about it.
Do you like it ?
Do you hate it ?
Do you wish it was never thought of ?
Do you want to marry it?
but seriously i just want yall's opinions.

Mine is that i like it


                                  Yours Truely BigMatt

[un1]

It is nice, but I have only been on the I-35 part.
Really could use a few more interchanges.

[BigMattFromTexas]

yeah it really could 

[Revive 755]

Neutral to very slight dislike.  First, it needs to accept EZpass so I could justify having one for any future trips eastward.  Second, with the spacing between interchanges, it should be posted at 75, especially since I'm paying to use it.

[Chris]

What's the quality of the Kansas Turnpike? I saw some pics of the Indian Nation Turnpike in Oklahoma, and I wouldn't be happy to pay for such a poor pavement... In my opinion, toll roads should have superior pavement and be mostly traffic jam free, like you see in France or Spain.

[un1]

Oh, the Kansas Turnpike is amazing compared to many other Toll Roads that I have been on the road is in very good shape and all of the rest stops in the middle are in top quality, they certainly put a lot of work into it.

[Scott5114]

I'm quite fond of the Kansas Turnpike, myself. The pavement is great (but still manages to be inferior to some of KDOT's work–yes, driving in Kansas is that good), the rest stops are superb (just rebuilt a few years ago) and I suppose the tolls are fair (If I remember correctly, the Oklahoma-to-Emporia stretch is $5.25 or something like that­–not too bad for 127 miles). The signage is ugly, but it looks like they're replacing a lot of it with Clearview so that will be better soon. I do wish it took some pass that was compatible with another toll road–Oklahoma has 684,851 turnpikes, so maybe they could switch to Pikepass?

KTA is amazingly helpful, too. I rewrote the article on the Kansas Turnpike a few years ago to bring it up to Featured Article status, and had a few questions for them. They always wrote back quickly, and, whenever I told them what I was doing, they even edited the article for me. Nice?

[J N Winkler]

The Kansas Turnpike used to have really good signing until it was changed out several years ago.  The sign formatting was previously very similar to KDOT's, especially with regard to borders on exit tabs, and the destinations on advance guide and exit signs were actually interchange labels (e.g., "Admire" at the US 56 exit rather than "Council Grove"/"Osage City" as at present--Admire is a small town on US 56 near the Turnpike exit and, in fact, its main claim to fame was being on the Turnpike signs).

The newer signs have very gappy intercharacter spacing in the main sign legend, stretched three-digit Interstate "bubble" shields, and thick borders all around the exit tabs which actually obscure the exit numbers until you are almost upon the sign.  I think the shortcomings in these signs may flow from the fact that the KTA uses FlexiSign instead of a specialist program like SignCAD for in-house sign design.  (For large projects which go out to contract, such as the Emporia interchange and the Kansas River bridges, the KTA typically employs HNTB as the design consultant and they do use SignCAD.)

KDOT-maintained rural Interstates are easier driving--largely because the Turnpike has long tangents followed by relatively short curves.

[Scott5114]

The Kansas Turnpike used to have really good signing until it was changed out several years ago.  The sign formatting was previously very similar to KDOT's, especially with regard to borders on exit tabs...

Aww, I wish I would have gotten to see them. When was this? Do any photos exist?

[situveux1]

I have such mixed feelings about the KS Turnpike. It's tolls are more than fair when compared to Oklahoma or Florida, but tolls none the less. And it's usefulness is limited sometimes because of miles of no interchanges, only one between Emporia and Topeka, for instance. The new 6 lanes between Topeka and Lawrence is very nice, but I'd like to see a speed limit of at least 75, 80, and an expansion of the six lanes all the way to KC. No plans yet, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I also love the cattle crossing. I had a pic several years ago, I'll have to see if I can drudge it up. The signs say Cattle Pens but the actual overpass has "Bazaar Cattle Crossing" on it. It's named after the nearby town of Bazaar, but there's no mention of that on the turnpike, so for any astute driver, it's just a randomly placed, bazaar cattle crossing!

[J N Winkler]

Scott:  no pictures of the old signs, unfortunately--I don't have any in my collection, and a quick Google Images/Wikimedia Commons search turns up just images which postdate the change in style.  There seems to be a real dearth of Turnpike pictures predating the widespread use of digital cameras (pre-2003).  The oldest on the AARoads Interstate Guide site seem to date from around 2002/03.

Re. exit tabs, it is worth noting that KDOT has used two different styles in the last decade.  The older style, which was used in several guide sign replacement contracts in the mid- to late 1990's, had a 1" border with 3" radius corners at the upper left and upper right, no bottom border, and a straight drop at the sides to the bottom edge of the tab.  This meant that at the right-hand edge of the sign, there was an unattached white line "floating" on green.  The newer style, which is used in current KDOT construction, is a full 1" border with 3" radius (the relatively thin border limits the visual "thickening" of the main sign border under the exit tab).  In both cases exit tabs are 30" high, compared to 24" as used in California, 36" as in Arizona, etc.  In the case of KDOT signs, the main sign panel has a 2" border with 12" corner radii.

Judging from the Turnpike signs visible in Wikimedia Commons (pictures taken mostly by you, I think), the KTA seems to be using the same border thicknesses and corner radii for both the tabs and the main sign panels.  The legend looks overlarge, I think because 20" uppercase/15" lowercase is being used for the main sign legend as opposed to a more usual 16" uppercase/12" lowercase.

[Alex]

I looked at our Wichita trip photos from October 2003, and the Turnpike signs already featured the bubble shields to which you referred. So unfortunately, we also missed any of the older signage.

[Revive 755]

From a short trip today, I think the cost of the turnpike is far better than going through Lawrence on KS 10.  If they're not going to finish the South Lawrence Trafficway, then it would be nice to get an East Lawrence Bypass that ties KS 10 to the Turnpike or US 24.

[Scott5114]

And its usefulness is limited sometimes because of miles of no interchanges, only one between Emporia and Topeka, for instance.

That's because there's only one place between Emporia and Topeka that would be useful to get off to! I mean, yeah, you could have an interchange at K-41, but really, for the small amounts of traffic that would use it, it should be no problem to get off at Admire and take US 56 and/or K-99 to wherever. You could have an interchange with K-99 north of Emporia, I guess...

I think we could use a nice thread on Kansas signage

[bugo]

I like the section that goes through the Flint Hills. 

[Revive 755]

As of today, the new interchange for Tonganoxie looked about ready to open.  The guide signs are up; the first one (1 Mile?) had an opening sooner banner underneath, the others had opening late 2009 in orange underneath.  I thought I read somewhere that this was supposed to be a K-tag only exit, but the toll plazas also had K-tag/cash lanes.

[Stephane Dumas]

Could be possible thne there might be other planned K-tag only interchanges on KTA coming soon?

[route56]

As of today, the new interchange for Tonganoxie looked about ready to open.  The guide signs are up; the first one (1 Mile?) had an opening sooner banner underneath, the others had opening late 2009 in orange underneath.  I thought I read somewhere that this was supposed to be a K-tag only exit, but the toll plazas also had K-tag/cash lanes.

No, the Tonganoxie/Eudora exit was always planned to be used by Ticket and K-TAG customers. It is, however, the first automated interchange (i.e., no staffed booths).

[route56]

Oh, yeah, in case you haven't seen my other thread, here's a set of videos of the Kansas River Bridge demolition:

Photos of first demolition: http://bit.ly/4a05oX
Video of first demolition: http://bit.ly/3B8MhG
Video of second demolition: http://bit.ly/1Qn4gG

[Brandon]

Ive been on the Kansas Turnpike many times and i was just wondering yall's thoughts about it.

Been on it only in January 2009 (Kansas City to I-335/I-470 interchange).  I was a bit miffed that they are not part of the EZ Pass consortium and as thus, I could not use my IPass on it.  Otherwise, it was a nice road.  A bit different with a concrete barrier instead of grass for the median though.