WE Blog

Not long ago, the idea of a 13th Street span over the Big Ditch seemed dead, largely killed by neighborhood opposition to the east. But credit city planners and the Wichita City Council for ingenuity in conceiving another plan that would spare neighbors while serving commuters. The latest concept, which won the council’s approval last week, would ease congestion at the Central and Zoo Boulevard spans by allowing drivers to exit northbound I-235 to westbound 13th Street and to enter I-235 southbound from 13th Street west of the ditch. But planning should continue for how to offset the bottlenecks to the north. When it comes to winning the daily battle with west-side traffic, the more bridges, the better.

Some Wichitans will judge incoming City Manager Robert Layton’s annual salary of $185,000, plus perks and benefits, to be excessive. Vice Mayor Sue Schlapp expressed solid concerns Thursday about the size of his contract, especially because of the significant disparities between urban Wichita and the small Des Moines suburb that Layton now manages. Our editorial today argues that once the council majority voted to hire Layton, it had to offer him something approaching the average pay of managers of cities with populations of 250,000 to 500,000 ($188,000). And just last summer it had been willing to pay Pat Salerno $215,000. Layton’s rich severance package of one year’s pay was probably necessary, too, given that the 4-3 council vote to offer him the job left him wondering what he was walking into. At least the yearlong hunt is over. As we concluded, “in the year to come, let’s have no more city manager searches.”

Since WaterWalk’s conception six years ago, Wichitans have learned not to count on everything working out as planned for the multiuse riverfront development. A hoped-for Bass Pro Shop morphed into a Gander Mountain store. And a costly boat canal, once central to the project, gave way to promises of a significant water feature and an amphitheater. Now, the amphitheater is targeted for elimination. At today’s meeting, Wichita City Council members will consider that and other proposed changes to the WaterWalk plan. Citizens can’t be blamed for wondering what, if anything, remains from the original vision. But costs are rising and the city’s financial commitment to the development isn’t. Plus, the amphitheater always risked being redundant, given the long-proposed permanent replacement for the West Bank Stage. WaterWalk certainly can still succeed without an amphitheater, as long as what was once promised to be “Wichita’s next great gathering place” still has places to gather. It’s important that the recently quickened pace of progress continues at WaterWalk, meaning City Hall also must make a decision soon on the future of the Boathouse.

Could Wichita’s on-again, off-again courtship of the 2011 United States Bowling Congress Championship still have a happy ending? Wichita should do whatever possible to see that it does – no small task, given the numbers of bookings now in place for Century II during the tournament’s time period of January to July 2011. But events involving 60,000 visitors and an estimated $100 million in tourism dollars to the city don’t come along every day. Having won the 2011 tournament in 2004, lost it in 2007 over contractual hassles and then lost out to the Orlando, Fla., area in the rebidding late last year, Wichita should seize this rare opportunity to get the bowlers back.

According to a market assessment by Sabre Airline Solutions, the passenger retention rate in Wichita Mid-Continent Airport’s “catchment” area – two-thirds of Kansas, plus northern Oklahoma – has increased from 56 to 66 percent since 2001. That means that even as commercial airlines have struggled nationwide, Mid-Continent has won back some of the travelers who had been driving to out-of-state airports for cheaper fares.
That improvement is a credit to the aggressive, creative approach taken since 2002 by the city of Wichita, Sedgwick County, Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce, Regional Economic Area Partnership and, as of 2006, the state government to attract and keep low-fare carriers AirTran Airways, Frontier Airlines and Allegiant Air. The affordable airfares initiative, which includes controversial public subsidies, has driven down the cost of business and leisure travel for south-central Kansans during a time when they are eager to hang onto every penny.

After more than a decade of contentious debate about another Big Ditch bridge, planners have come up with an idea that just might fly – a bridge from 13th Street west of the Big Ditch onto I-235. That would ease the crush of traffic at the Zoo Boulevard and Central Avenue bridges as Wichita’s west-siders try to get to and from downtown jobs. Most important for gaining neighbors’ support, the latest plan would leave 13th Street east of the Big Ditch unaffected. The cost and funding are uncertain at this point. And in truth, the Big Ditch could use more than one new span, including the one previously discussed from 25th Street North on the east side to 29th Street North on the west. But the latest bridge plan makes a lot of sense.

As the elder on the Wichita City Council from 1997 to 2005, Phil Lambke sometimes couldn’t see past his southeast-side district toward a greater good for the city at large. But you had to admire the consistency of his conservatism and his low tolerance for nonsense, such as when he called city staff members’ travel spending “loose as a goose” and a consultant’s presentation a “bunch of mush.” When he left the bench, we offered this spoof headline: “Asked for parting statement, Phil Lambke says ‘no.’” Our thoughts and prayers are with Lambke’s family, in the wake of his death Friday at age 87.