If there’s one thing more aggravating to drivers and affected businesses than a massive street construction project, it’s snow and ice on top of a massive street construction project. Traffic flow slowed further Wednesday as the mazelike sites on East Central, at Hillside and Douglas, and elsewhere took another hit from Mother Nature. When you’re inching along a snow-packed, narrowed street past orange cones and idled road equipment, it’s hard not to question the city’s decision last year to bid and build so many more projects than usual rather than lose federal funding.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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27 Comments
Hmmm – I actually agree with you.
I need to take my temperature.
Agreed. It seems to me that the City is building too much part-time instead of doing less at once but doing it full-time. East Central for example – why not do it a mile at a time and get the piece done before tearing up more. Kellogg and Rock: They have freeway out past Rock but haven’t turned a shovel at the interchange yet. So, we have the hazards of construction stretched out over years and through winters. What are they thinking?
We have completed frontage in front of Rusty Eck Ford. That would take pressure off of west-bound traffic coming from Armor/Towne East. It continues to sit barricaded.
The kicker is – if they don’t build – they don’t receive the funding to build.
Circular logic there.
The ‘funding’ doesn’t just disappear – it is used in other areas where it IS needed.
This mentality reminds me of a friend of mine who just went into business. He tells me in December that he ‘needs’ to buy all sorts of equipment before his fiscal year ends. He wants the deductions, of course.
“But do you need the equipment?” I ask him.
He shakes his head – “not really, but I will get a tax break.”
It took awhile to get him to understand that he would still have to cough up the capital to pay for that equipment.
Same with the streets. There may be matching funds – but the City has to cough up the first half.
I would be interested in learning how the bids are awarded and if there is any guarantee on the streets. Some roadways seem to last a long time, despite heavy traffic, but some need replacing within a couple of years.
One of the criteria for choosing contractors should be the history of their former job’s product life.
I hate to keep pumping money into a company that needs to redo their streets all the time – when another company is laying down roads that last more than twice as long. Cost needs to be calculated over the long haul.
I’m all for public works.
But some of these projects DO seem a bit superfluous.
A center left turn lane on Pawnee between Broadway and the river?? Why? Because of all the people not going to Herman Hill park?
If we have to tear up the roads, let’s educate the public on traffic circles and build more of those.
JR – eastbound Pawnee has left-turners into the residentail area. So, as long as it is a “two-way” left turn lane it probably makes sense. I just wish they had the foresight to do it right in the first place.
I join with JR in his suggestion that there be additional traffic circles added throughout the city; from my limited experience with them (remind me sometime to tell you the story about the one I confronted in Boston), they do help expedite traffic flow.
I am not well travelled. But on my two trips through Colorado, I found they make extensive use of traffic circles. Once you get used to them they really aid the flow of traffic.
Just in case some one doesn’t know what I am talking about, there is a traffic circle in Delano.
There were a few in and around Boston that reminded me of Roller Derby. One at the end of Storrow drive and other down toward the cape. Lote of high-speed traffic converging on them.
And, for those who want a little Kansas road trip but also would like to practice: there is a traffic circle in Newton, coming off I-135, and one in McPherson, at First Street and Centennial.
And while I’m on that street….
The intersection of Pawnee and McClean blvd. would be a very good place for a traffic circle.
Have to disagree with you guys – I think circles work well in small-town environments but not in high-traffic situations. Seems to me those locations I referred to in Boston had lots of accidents.
Ben, my only experience with a traffic circle in a high-traffic environment was the one in Boston. You may well be correct in your assessment, but there was a boat load of traffic moving through the Boston circle very quickly (I oughta know; I went around the darned thing 5 times trying to figure out what it was I needed to do, accompanied by my daughter’s ‘just go, they’ll see the Kansas tag and take pity’ from the back seat).
Traffic circles?!! TRAFFIC CIRCLES!!!
God, how I hate traffic circles. They are not just accidents waiting to happen, it’s like handing out tickets to the body shop. Get in, and if traffic’s heavy, you can’t get out without being a hazard.
Go to the east coast (DC), and you’ll find the damn things several lanes deep. God help you if you get caught in an inner lane during heavy traffic; you’ll be dizzy long before you can extricate yourself from the damn thing.
And now KDOT, it appears, is about to put one on US 400. They might be acceptable on basic two lane road intersections, with slow speed traffic; they have NO place on a high speed through highway.
God save us from roundabouts.
(still waiting…)
Ben, I think it (Armour and Kellogg frontage) is still barricaded because the intersection is still open.
GMC, you have recited some of my thoughts as I went round and round and round….
You are taking my idea much further than I intended.
Low traffic 4 ways now controlled by a stop sign or intersections of high traffic/low traffic streets (Pawnee McClean) were what I had in mind.
I HATE ROUNDABOUTS. I HATE ROUNDABOUTS.
I don’t think ya’ll have had the wonderful opportunity to use these roundabouts.
Or at least, not enough. The semis struggle through them and back up traffic,
then you have to guess what the car coming around the bend is going to do…the ones behind you expect you to go, and they nearly rear end you when you make the last second decision to wait.
Hence my first post in which I said there would have to be money spent to educate drivers about roundabouts.
I guess I am kidding myself though. Kansas people don’t know how to use turn signals let alone traffic circles.
How about more traffic lights timed for proper traffic speed?
“Hence my first post in which I said there would have to be money spent to educate drivers about roundabouts.”
Ya know, JR -How bout roads built to serve the needs of the drivers, rather than the other way around?
Typical of the way some see gov’t in general.
Well the roads serve the drivers by getting them where they are going as efficiently as possible no?
VT – we would see your out-of-state tag and take aim. OPEN SEASON!
I figured out Boston driving real quick – develop “the look” You know, that crazed look that makes you want to run the other way. Works in New York too.
Ben, I figured as much, thus not heeding the unsolicited advice from the daughter; and, wish I’d known about “the look” then, might have saved an orbit or two. :-)
GMC -To add to your complaint about roundabouts.
There is a roundabout on Hwy 50 just outside of Florence. I believe it’s where 177 and Hwy 50 intersect. Very heavy semi traffic. Just a single lane but the absolute PITS!!!!!!!!!
…Rome Italy, cab ride, traffic circle…Was like a shark feeding frenzy…Not Catholic, but went to St. Peters to offer a prayer of thanks for safe delivery…:-)…
See that the Rock & Kellogg intersection construction begins Monday, 5 Feb., with a 2 year projected time for completion. Time for me to visit St. Peter’s, too, I think!
Fortunately I don’t have to go through that one. But, I do have east central Woodlawn-Rock.
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