Kellogg, Rock interchange opens this week
Traffic will begin moving through the new Kellogg-Rock Road interchange this week.
The interchange will open to traffic over three days, the city announced Monday.
On Wednesday, eastbound traffic will be routed onto the freeway after the morning rush hour.
Westbound traffic, beginning at Cypress, will be shifted onto the freeway after the morning rush hour on Friday.
The traffic signals for the main Kellogg traffic at Armour and at Rock Road will be eliminated.
Traffic will be limited to two of the three lanes of the freeway until both ends of the construction are completed later this year.
All north-south through-lanes and all turn movements for Rock Road traffic will be opened next week.
Through-lanes and turns for Armour/Towne East Mall Drive will open the week of Nov. 16.
"For through traffic, the travel time through the Rock Road intersection area has been reduced from over 10 minutes in 2006 to less than two minutes," said Michael Jacobs, special projects engineer.
The freeway opening means that motorists will be able to travel 13 miles of Kellogg between stoplights — from Cypress, near the Kansas Turnpike interchange, to 111th Street West.
The Kellogg-Rock interchange was completed on time, Jacobs said.
"Our goal was to have all movements available by the day after Thanksgiving, for shoppers who want to visit the area," Jacobs said.
The $48 million freeway construction phase of the Kellogg-Rock Road upgrade began in February 2007 and is scheduled for final completion in the spring. It is the last of 10 construction phases in the Rock Road area.
Construction was broken into phases, due to the time required for right-of-way acquisition, to shorten the time to final completion.
The first phase at Kellogg and Rock Road was construction of drainage structures, which began in 2003.
The total investment to convert Kellogg from an arterial street to a freeway from Governor to Cypress is $155 million. The city has paid for it through its portion of the one-percent countywide sales tax.
This section of the Kellogg corridor will provide a $450 million impact to the local economy when it is opened, the city said.
The project employed 100 people during construction, and more than 222 companies provided products and services.
The city of Wichita and the city of Andover have begun a conceptual design to continue the freeway east through Andover.
This story was originally published November 3, 2009 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Kellogg, Rock interchange opens this week."