Wichitans dismayed by how long it’s taking to make Kellogg a freeway can no longer feel better by pointing to Boston’s Big Dig.
Properly known as the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Project, the Big Dig highway project, budgeted at $2.6 billion in 1982, finally will see active construction end on Dec. 31, at a cost of $14.8 billion, plus a corruption scandal and the life of one motorist. “It never should have taken so long. It never should have been so expensive,†said former Gov. Michael Dukakis.
Many would say the same about Kellogg construction, which was approved in 1990, was once expected to cost $156.6 million and remains unfinished. The current phase alone, from the Kansas Turnpike to just west of Armour, is expected to cost a little more than $150 million and be finished by the end of 2009, according to Mike Jacobs, special projects engineer for the city.What’s taking so long? “It’s really the funding stream to be able to pay for it. It’s not the construction or the design,†Jacobs told The Eagle editorial board. A local sales tax funds Kellogg construction, which also has benefited from state and federal money over the years.
Next up for design: the eastern stretch from Cypress to 127th Street East, just west of the K-96 interchange; the western portion another two miles out to 135th Street West. “I would hope to have those designs finished in about three years,†he said.
But there is no completion date or final price tag for Kellogg, which means more work zones and public investment ahead.
28 Comments
They collect the money, put it in a bank and make a killing off the interest.Delays is big business for the system.
They have to do something different about those on/off ramps that are the same. It is murder trying to merge off when someone is trying to merge on at the same time. I consider it to be an enormous design flaw. and it caused ME to have an accident.
You can’t merge over without looking behind you, and then you get the ticket for not watching in front of you.
Somewhere there must be a guy that graduated HS, got a job working on Hi-way 54 through Wichita, worked there till age 65 and retired. There is, right?
Oh noooo…caused YOU to have an ACCIDENT!?!?!? Tear up the onramps, we have a crisis!
Learn to drive…the ramps are not inherently dangerous if you just pay attention.
The voters of Wichita should demand that this project be completed in a timely manner. The excuse about having to slow up for money is BS. They can float bonds if needed to pay for it. There is absolutely no excuse to keep traffic tied up for years on end to finish the work.
“”"Somewhere there must be a guy that graduated HS, got a job working on Hi-way 54 through Wichita, worked there till age 65 and retired. There is, right?”"”
That might be true of the canal route. As I recall it took them about 20 years to build that but the big difference was that it did not tie up traffic because it was a new road. Kellogg is not.
You tell me how you’d do when the cars that are supposed to be moving forward stop dead in front of you, and you are looking backwards to merge right. Now really honestly say you have two separate sets of eyeballs too?
And I was nearly stopped by the time I hit the car in front of me, so I had left quite a bit of room between my car and the one in front. It’s hard to stop when you’re driving 50 mph. Little damage, nobody hurt.
I’m telling you there was no humanly way possible for me to prevent this accident except drive way under the posted speed limit. And you know how that is.
I have been told an alternative east Highway 54 route was considered. That is a “through” route could have been built parallel to current “business” route of Highway 54 by perhaps a quarter of a mile. This would have been back in the 1970’s.
Thus Wichita would have gained an improved “business” route on the present alignment serving all that business and the new parallel “through” route a quarter mile south.
This whole project probably would have been completed ten years earlier saving millions of dollars and providing a much better traffic situation.
There’s an easy answer; avoid the construction on East Kellogg. I made the mistake of driving through the construction zone Wednesday. What a mess! I haven’t been there in about 6 months. I forgot how bad it was.
I’ll continue to use surface streets until they get East Kellogg finished. Not quite as fast, but I’m less likely to get killed.
And let’s not even factor in Wichita’s rude and inept drivers.
And I was nearly stopped by the time I hit the car in front of me, so I had left quite a bit of room between my car and the one in front. It’s hard to stop when you’re driving 50 mph. Little damage, nobody hurt.
I’m telling you there was no humanly way possible for me to prevent this accident except drive way under the posted speed limit. And you know how that is.
Posted by: political_mom | December 28, 2007 at 07:56 AM
Merging ramps are 50 mph?
That might be the problem right there. :)
Several years ago my wife and I attended a performance of the Prairie Rose Wranglers when they were still venued at the Prairie Rose Chuck Wagon Supper (sorry to bring that up again). One of the Wranglers told a good joke. He said that he read in the paper that scientists had determined that the Sun would burn out in 4 billion years. He said, “Unfortunately, that means they will be finishing Kellogg construction in the dark.” My intellectual mind thought that was a funny joke. But I just couldn’t bring myself to laugh.
Political mom, I’ve had the same problem before, so I started merging off the highways and onto the on ramps behind the cars that are merging onto the highway from off ramp. You can slow down to about 45-50 in the far right lane and not cause any problems. Its easy that way, you just swoop in behind ther person merging so you don’t have to speed up, look behind you, and cut in front of the person trying to merge onto the highway.
You rear ended somebody, it’s your fault, not the road’s.
Damn, WAR, that’s one of the oldest jokes in the world. Are you a professor by any chance? It usually takes 10 to 15 years for professors to hear and tell a joke.
I’m telling you there was no humanly way possible for me to prevent this accident except drive way under the posted speed limit. And you know how that is.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And yet hundreds of drivers do it there every day. Go figure.
I drive the entire length of the freeway portion of Kellogg daily. One thing that I see is that the older portions are already in need of reconstruction while the rest is not even done yet.
I don’t know where Ms. Holman got her dates, but I remember houses being removed in 1973 for nonstop travel through Wichita. They could have built the highway starting in 1973 and rebuilt it several times in the last 30 years. Folks, this will take 50 years. Don’t worry about the guy who got out of high school and worked till he was 65, then retired. Worry about the city buddies that have had their pockets filled for this and other public works con jobs.
Normally I limit my comments to public performance facilities (stay tuned, THAT is about to get interesting), but Kellogg… Uggggg.
I grew up mostly in the Los Angeles metro. I learned to drive in Grandpa’s wheat field in Oklahoma, and then use that on the freeways of California! One of the things I learned was that merging/accelleration lanes need to be long, as you should be up to road speed before you reach the end of the lane.
There are precious few such lanes in our city. Most of them involve steep grades, hairpin turns, or are simply too short. The I-235/Kellogg interchange is an example., along with West-bound K-96/Southbound I-135. Another is the tight turn on the 29th St. exit, South-bound I-135.
Folks, Kansas still has plenty of dirt. It’s exposed, surface dirt. It’s okay to build wider turns, longer ramps, lower grades. It’s also okay to put up lights! So it’s easier to see these things at night, in bad weather, or when one is unfamiliar with the potential dangers that lurk ahead.
These things cost money, but the loss of life (and the monetary productivity of the deceased) has an economic cost as well. Our voters tend to support “penny-wise, Pound-foolish” lowest possible cost philosophies. We get what we pay for, and sometimes that is inadequate.
As for financing Kellogg… generally, Federal money is paid out on a schedule, one that is subject to change depending on the Congressional and Presidential relations. If we were willing to pay for it all by ourselves, we could call the schedule. As a public, our lips say one thing, but our hand on our wallet says another.
Drive on, dudes & dudetttes!
LTB (Lions, Tigers, & Bears)
I recall some years ago when the job market in Wichita was really in the toilet. That would have been the time to issue bonds and get the road work done. Costs would have been lower and traffic was lighter.
Unfortunately, that would have taken FORESIGHT; a quality sadly lacking around here.
Folks, you’re forgetting a little thing called inflation. Anyone out there working for the same wage they made in 1990? I’m among the math-challenged but even I can figure out that at a rate of just 3% a year over 17 years, a $150 million project becomes a $248 million project. I used 3% as a conservative (read lowball) estimate. Construction material and labor costs have been much higher.
LTB: I agree with you … the loops and merging lanes in Wichita’s old full or partial “cloverleafs” were built way too short and tight too be safe particularly in heavy and weather impeded traffic. I wonder how many wrecks have occured on these mis-designed structures over the years?
Now, concrete and particularly reinforced concrete handles compression pretty well. In this category, I recommend putting slabs of concrete on a flat prepared road bed on a ground level base.
Concrete DOES NOT handle stretching, bending and road traffic vibrations nearly as well. Of course, reinforcing concrete with steel bars helps but does not prevent failure over the long run.
Remember the interstate highway bridge over the Mississippi River that failed last year? Standing right beside it was a much older concrete arch bridge that uses the principle of compression for its structure. It will probably last for many more years.
That’s why it’s best to put long roadways on grade level and bridge the less traveled roadways over the main thoroughfare. Most of the Kansas turnpike is a good example.
But Wichita has used the opposite system in its design … build long lengths of “flyovers” and overpasses in its through freeways. I always wondered if this was an attempt to give Wichita a big-city look?? Many of these spans are now nearing the end of their expected life.
I estimate that overpasses, flyovers, concrete bridge decks have a life span of about 50 years. I have heard planners say, “That’s OK, I will be dead then anyway.”
So, regardless, Wichita now needs a continuous bridge and overpass inspection program to find structures that are failing. Of course, the failure usually occurs on the bottom side of bridges since that is where protective concrete slabs are most likely to separate and expose the steel reinforcing bars. Once re-bars begin to rust and deteriorate the structure rapidly loses strength.
Of course, the roadway itself is not part of the structure so potholes are not evidence of a failing bridge structure.
On the west Kellogg (US 54) and I-235 intersection (near the airport), engineers are currently designing an incredibly complex and expensive intersection of aerial reinforced concrete roadways that will make a kettle of spagetti look simple and organized.
In my opinion, a much better alternative would be too design a traffic-lighted intersection on grade or ground-level. True, this would require some traffic to actually stop to pass through the intersection. However, this would save millions of dollars in design/construction costs, triple the the expected life span and produce a much safer intersection of U.S. 54 and I-235.
Traffic-lighted? Between two freeways? Ya gotta be kidding!
Ben: First of all, Highway 54 is not a freeway. Just yesterday evening, I returned on good old Hghway 54 from Pratt as the snow was beginning to fall on the trees forming the old Eleanor Roosevelt wind breaks shielding the road. I stopped at Casey’s C-Store in Kingman for a hot cup of coffee.
Actually 18-wheeler interstate truck traffic avoids Wichita and its out-dated interchanges by traveling westward from Emporia to Newton to Hutchinson and southwestward on K-61 to Pratt. From Pratt, they go southwestward through southwestern Kansas, the Oklahoma panhandle, the Texas panhandle into New Mexico.
But, in any case, regarding the I-235 and Highway 54 intersection, stopping traffic with traffic lights would not be the worst of all worlds … if it saves money, construction time and safety on the roadways, especially on icy days like we have been having.
The Big Dig – a perfect name for a typical Big Government program full of waste and corruption.
$14.8 Billion for 7.5 miles.
That is: $1,973,333,333 per mile!
$1.973 BILLION per MILE!
You global warming people should be protesting all new highway construction!
You same global warming nuts are complaining about off ramps and on ramps being dangerous, yet why are you still driving a car that is killing our planet!
You Global Warming Liberal Socialists Car Drivers are Hypocrites!
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-12-25-big-dig_N.htm
I remember when Kellogg was just another busy street. 4 lanes with stop lights and all. I walked across the street to Sunnyside School every day for 6 years.
“this would save millions of dollars, if it saves money,saving millions of dollars,They can float bonds if needed to pay for it.” Does anyone see a familiar pattern here? All lip service but no one wants to anti up when it comes to paying for a paveing project as large as Kellogg or I-235 and 47th South. Let’s keep it cheap. Well, paying on the cheap means you get the cheapest design, the cheapest materials and the cheapest workmanship possible. Also some of our so-called community leaders make things awful. One such leader had a hand in that hairpin acel lane from westbound K-96 onto Southbound I-135! How? He gave the city the land for that debacle on condition that it be built with in a certain time frame or the project would have to be constructed three miles north at the intersection of K-254, I-235 and I-135! Now that’s a real community leader for you! All the city would have to do is recontruct North 37h street from two to four lanes in front of his business. You can guess who I’m talking about. The city of Wichita is beholden to a lot of filthy community leaders who are out for filling their pockets!!!
You rear ended somebody, it’s your fault, not the road’s.
Posted by: Rog
Not necessarily. It is a typical insurance fraud scam to get someone to rearend you, and there are numerous other ways you can rearend someone where it is not really your fault, but you will still get screwed.