OttawaHerald.com -- Community News. Community Connections.

	Franklin County, Kansas, USA

Subscriber Services Home Delivery Gift Subscription Stop-Start Delivery Missing Paper Back Issues Newsstand Locations Shopper Locations

Advertising Services Manage Your Account Place a Classified Ad Place a Display Ad Advertise Online Business Finder Directory

Other Services Submit News Laminated Items Photos & Keepsakes Article Archives Contact Us History of the Herald Our Policies

Suggest a poll topic

2009-11-21

2009-11-18

2009-11-05

Agriculture

Lifestyles

Tuesday, October 07, 2008 11:20 AM

File photo/The Ottawa Herald

Emergency workers extricate Andrew Potts, then-21, Richmond, from his vehicle in September 2004 after it was hit head on by a car driven by Arthur Meade, 37, Neosho Falls. Meade was killed in the accident on U.S. 59. The state is currently building a new four-lane expressway to replace the dangerous stretch of highway, which officials hope will prove safer.

Highway’s dangers push need for change

By CLEON RICKEL, Herald Senior Writer

It was called “the silent killer.”

Deb Miller, secretary of the Kansas Department of Transportation, calls it one of the state’s most dangerous roads and dealing with it is her top priority.

It’s U.S. 59.

Deadly past

“Everybody in Ottawa is related to someone or knows someone who was killed or injured on that highway,” Blaine Finch, former Ottawa mayor who helped lobby for the new highway, said.

Finch coined the phrase “the silent killer,” which was quickly picked up by project supporters.

Finch’s own horror story about U.S. 59 involves an accident that occurred the same night as Finch’s Ottawa High School prom.

One of Finch’s classmates was attending the prom. However, the classmate’s relatives were killed in an accident that day, he said.

Safety was the reason why a group of Franklin County residents decided to seek improvements to the road more than a decade ago, Ottawa Mayor Gene Ramsey, who was a member of the original group, said.

“The highway has been dangerous for a long time,” Ramsey said. “We started out on what was a safety issue.”

The highway has a deadly combination of high traffic numbers and poor “road geometry” — narrow lanes that go up and down hills, creating blind spots, and no shoulders.

When the group began talking to KDOT staffers, they listened.

A comprehensive highway plan

The original road, built in the 1920s, has 10,000 vehicles a day on it, KDOT said. According to one KDOT study, on the average, there’s an injury accident on the highway every 10 days and a fatality accident once every five months.

The total accident rate on U.S. 59 is 25 percent higher than any other similar roadways in the state, Miller said.

“We have a serious problem and we have a duty to solve it,” Miller said.

According to a history time line published by KDOT, the agency began studying the highway and possible alternatives in March 1997.

Over the years, members of the group attended state meetings, public hearings and legislative committee meetings, especially when the state began working on a 10-year comprehensive transportation plan, Ramsey said.

“Scott Lambers (a former Ottawa city manager) and I attended one Senate transportation committee. That’s when Ben Vidricksen was the chairman,” Ramsey said.

“He looked at the numbers and he asked, ‘Why hasn’t this highway been done before?’”

Rep. Bill Feuerborn, D-Garnett, said the combination of traffic numbers and poor road geometry ensured that the highway would be included in the comprehensive transportation plan.

The process of prioritizing highway improvements is left to KDOT staff rather than by legislative flack, he said.

“That way, you won’t have one legislator trying to get a highway for his district at the expense of a highway that has a higher priority,” Feuerborn said.

Although the process is designed to remove politics from decision-making, there are still plenty of politics involved, Finch said. Finch, who served as an intern for then-Rep. Ralph Tanner and as a lobbyist for the city, saw some of the maneuvering involved in the funding and crafting of the plan, which included the authorization and planning for the new U.S. 59.

Alternative options

Originally, the local group had pushed for a “Super 2” U.S. 59 along the present roadway, Ramsey said.

U.S. 50 between Emporia and Newton is an example of a Super 2 — a two-lane highway with wide traffic lanes and generous shoulders, with a third passing lane at certain intervals, and gradual grades and cuts.

They were surprised when KDOT came back with a proposal to build an entirely new four-lane expressway from Lawrence to a connection to I-35 northeast of Ottawa, Ramsey said.

“A four-lane was the only thing KDOT would consider,” Ramsey said.

Although they were taken aback by the proposal, the group gave its support to the plan, he said.

“It’s a matter of safety,” he said.

As the agency firmed up its plans, KDOT conducted a series of public meetings over three to four years. The proposal attracted fierce opposition both from landowners and activists who called the proposal energy and environmentally insensitive.

After a few shifts in alignment and the proposal, KDOT finalized its plan in fall 2005.

A new plan

The new highway will run roughly parallel to the east of the present U.S. 59 from Lawrence through Douglas County and in Franklin County until it reaches a point at about Shawnee Road. The road cuts cross-country until it strikes I-35 at about Pawnee Road northeast of Ottawa.

The cost of the new 18-mile highway was estimated at $214 million in 2007 dollars.

The highway will benefit Ottawa and Franklin County, Tom Weigand, Ottawa Area Chamber of Commerce president, said.

Connecting it directly to I-35 will give a powerful boost to the local economy and make the Ottawa area even more attractive to companies dependent on good highway and railroad links, he said.

Since construction began in Franklin County last year, Weigand said he’s getting an increasing number of calls from industrial and business prospects.

“We haven’t had to call them,” Weigand said. “They’ve been calling us.”

KDOT had planned to do the new highway in two segments, starting on the segment in Franklin County first, with the Douglas County segment a year behind.

The Franklin County segment originally was scheduled to be completed in late 2009.

Grading and bridge work in Franklin County has been under way since last year.

However, KDOT hasn’t awarded bids for the concrete work and the timetable has lagged, Ramsey said.

Finishing work

Kansas highway work has hit a flat tire for three reasons.

The federal government has announced major cuts in the money it gives to states for highway work, he said.

At the same, drivers whipsawed by higher fuel prices are driving less and buying less fuel. That cuts the state’s own revenues from fuel taxes, he said.

In previous years, the Legislature has been dipping out of the transportation fund for other expenses in an attempt to keep from raising state taxes, he said.

“The time is coming when the state will have to pay back those bonds,” Ramsey said.

As a result, KDOT has been scaling back its plans for highway work and may cut projects out of the comprehensive transportation plan, he said.

Although the state has assured that won’t be the case, some Franklin Countians are afraid that even U.S. 59 will be stopped to save money, he said.

“Deb Miller has told us they’ll finish this project, but the money will be very tight,” Ramsey said. “I couldn’t imagine them stopping now that they’ve spent all this money buying right of way and for construction.

“It would be an expensive road to nowhere.”

The project may be spread out another year or two, but it will get done, Feuerborn said.

He said he’ll keep pressure on KDOT to finish the project.

“They may cut other projects but 59 was such a high priority that they’ll finish it,” he said.