Here are the major road projects hitting Wichita and surrounding areas

Extended pedestrian and bicycle paths, including one that will be able to take you from the Sedgwick County Zoo to Luciano’s in Mulvane without mixing you in traffic, are among the road construction projects in Wichita and the surrounding area this year.

Reconfigured streets, smooth new surfaces and sleek new bridges — and the perennial East Kellogg saga — are also on the agenda.

“We have some kind of interesting things that I think are kind of good things,” said Jim Weber, deputy director of public works for Sedgwick County. Those include two projects connecting Wichita by path to Haysville, Derby and Mulvane for walkers and bicyclists.

Before the changes improve our lives, however, there are the inevitable growing-pain inconveniences of lane and, sometimes, road closures.

Some of the projects — and headaches — have already started.

I-235 and K-96

Work began March 11 on rebuilding the Wichita north junction of I-235. The project will last about 2 ½ years and this summer will impinge on eastbound K-96 and northbound I-235 traffic. The first phase of the project will build a new 40th Street. After that’s done, the Seneca Street Bridge over I-235 will be removed permanently. The first half of a new northbound I-235 bridge over the Little Arkansas River also will be built in the first phase.

Most likely in July, eastbound K-96 as it merges onto northbound 235 will be reduced to one lane. At the same time, I-235 northbound will be one lane, beginning at the Meridian exit.

“People coming in from Maize are blowing through there at 70 miles per hour, and they’ll be down to one lane,” Kansas Department of Transportation spokesman Tom Hein said. The two lanes will be maintained through the work zone, and lane changes will be able to occur in the work zone, Hein said. However, during non-peak hours, traffic will at times be reduced to one lane in the work zone. That could occur from 9 a.m. to 3p.m., or in the evening and on weekends.

Also, there will be one weekend in July when I-235 will be closed from North Meridian to North Broadway for the demolition of the Seneca Street Bridge.

There should be little in the way of lane closures on southbound I-235 or westbound K-96 the first year. Later elements of the I-235 project will include the addition of auxiliary lanes on I-235, the rebuilding of the Broadway interchange, replacement of the bridges over Broadway (the new ones will be built alongside the old ones), and replacement of aging pavement.

In Wichita

Among the bigger road reconstructions in Wichita this year will be West Street from Kellogg to Harry, said Shawn Mellies, chief design engineer for the city.

“West Street, traffic-wise, is probably the big one because it’s heavy volume,” Mellies said. “That will be a big impact.” Beginning in the fall, traffic will be reduced to one lane in both directions, and the work is expected to last until next summer. The stretch of road will be converted from a four-lane to a five-lane urban section — two lanes in each direction with a two-way left-turn lane in the center — in response to current traffic as well as expected development and redevelopment in the area, he said. It also will include sidewalks. And once that’s completed, at the end of next year or the beginning of 2021, the work will move south, from Harry to Pawnee.

This fall, work to replace the Harry Street Bridge at the Arkansas River will begin. The bridge will then be closed until early 2020. Bicycle and pedestrian paths will be part of the new bridge, as will a dedicated left-turn lane for westbound traffic turning south onto McLean.

The Brookside bridges on Second Street and Douglas Avenue that cross the creek just east of Edgemoor are slated to be replaced, with Second Street work starting this summer and the Douglas section at the beginning of next year. Traffic will be down to one lane on Second, and down to one lane in each direction on Douglas during those projects.

Bike projects

The city has been increasing the number of bicycle paths over the past five or so years, following a master plan, That plan gets updated occasionally in response to new businesses or new parks where better accessibility makes sense, Mellies said.

Mount Vernon is being developed into one of the major east/west bike corridors through town, and work late this year or early next year will extend on-street bike paths from the river to to Southeast Boulevard. That project also will transform that stretch of Mount Vernon from a two-lane road to a three-lane road, with the center lane used for a two-way left-turn lane.

Non-motorized transport will be possible with towns south of Wichita after two county projects are done.

“Let’s say you start out in Mulvane at Luciano’s Italian restaurant,” Jim Weber of the county said. “You could run up Rock Road to Derby, follow Derby’s pathway system to 63rd and Oliver, take Oliver to 47th west to Clifton and back up Clifton to the city of Wichita path system on MacArthur. … You could literally go out to the Sedgwick County Zoo on your bike and do it all on an off-road pathway.” That project will start later in the year.

“If you’re interested in walking or biking, that’s a pretty good one.”

The other project, already under construction, will connect Meridian pathways north and south of the Big Ditch. The bridge over the Big Ditch went from two lanes to four lanes of traffic about 10 years ago, and “there’s no place to be on that bridge to bike or to walk, so we have federal money to build a pedestrian bridge,” Weber said. That bridge, 900 feet long, will complete a path that will go to Campus High School at 55th and Meridian and to the adjacent South Lakes Park sports complex. People will be able to connect from there north on Meridian into the Wichita system of paths.

“It really helps with the interconnecting of the two communities,” Weber said.

“That’s going to be done by fall. They’re working on it now, and they’re working pretty good.”

Bel Aire

Bel Aire is getting ready for a huge project that will begin next year — the widening of Woodlawn from 37th to 45th Street North. Already decided: Woodlawn from 37th North to the railroad tracks will be five lanes. A survey was being taken through March 29 asking whether the section of the street from the tracks to 45th Street should be three or five lanes, and whether the intersection at 45th and Woodlawn should have a traffic signal or a roundabout, said Tristin Terhune, communications director for the city of Bel Aire. The City Council could make a decision on those elements in April. As part of the construction, there will be a multi-use path on one side of Woodlawn, and a sidewalk on the other side, and there will be a crosswalk with signal crossing Woodlawn to Bel Aire Park.

The project will be paid for with a $4.2 million grant from the Wichita Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, and with Bel Aire contributing $2.59 million to $3.99 million depending on the final plan.

Kellogg work

Back in Wichita, the closure of the connection of West Kellogg and 111th Street will be made permanent this spring. Engineers have monitored how traffic has been working since the traffic signal was removed from Kellogg near the Cotillion and Brady Nursery.

“Thru traffic, I can tell you, works a heck of a lot better,” Mellies said. And “from what we can tell,” westbound drivers on Kellogg who don’t turn soon enough to get onto the frontage roads before getting to 111th Street have been able to make a U-turn to go back east and get to their destination.

Drivers won’t see much difference on East Kellogg as long-term building of the freeway from Webb to K-96 continues. But the Webb interchange should be mainly complete by the end of the year, Mellies said.

Other ongoing projects

In Old Town, work on Second Street from Washington to the railroad tracks will continue through the fall, and work on Greenwich from Harry to Pawnee will be done by the end of the year. Improvements at 45th and Hillside have moved into the last phase, that on the railroad crossing, and then that project is expected to be done by the end of May. The work on 127th from 13th to 21st also will be done this spring.

Half of Sedgwick County’s road money is spent on maintenance, while the county is also building four or five bridges this year and doing six smaller bridge projects using pre-cast concrete box culverts.

“On the not-super-big ones, we’ll tear out the old bridge and bring in the pre-cast and set these with a crane, and it’s like a new bridge,” Weber said.

Wichita-area KDOT projects will include two concrete patching projects that will done at night on I-135 through November. Those will be from the turnpike toll booths and 47th Street South to Pawnee, and from 17th to 37th Street North. Traffic will be reduced to two lanes early at night and then down to one lane in each direction overnight during the projects.

Two asphalt overlay projects also will be night projects, said Hein of KDOT. One will be on U.S. 54 from Washington to Hillside and I-135, likely starting in July and finishing by Oct. 31. The other will be on I-135 from Pawnee to First Street, starting as early as May or as late as August and also finishing by Oct. 31.

This story was originally published April 8, 2019 at 5:07 AM.