Project to fix one of Wichita area’s biggest traffic concerns moves forward

The project to help mitigate traffic concerns and wrecks at one of the worst bottlenecks in the Wichita area has taken another step forward after the Wichita City Council approved roughly $3.77 million in funding on Tuesday.

The junction of I-135 and I-235 in north Wichita causes one of the worst traffic jams in the city during morning and evenings on workdays. The Sedgwick County Commission had previously approved its half of roughly $7.55 million. The Kansas Department of Transportation will pay 75% of the roughly $30.22 million project.

The junction was built roughly 50 years ago.

Traffic volume has grown significantly since. It’s at roughly 100,000 vehicles a day now with future projections of “well over” 160,000 vehicles a day, city engineer Gary Janzen said.

“It’s certainly one of our biggest transportation priorities,” Janzen said.

Kansas Highway Patrol Trooper Chad Crittenden said it could help alleviate one of the worst crash areas on Sedgwick County highways. The problem is people having to slow down for the cloverleaf ramp from I-135 north to the I-235 going west.

About 90% of traffic wrecks are caused by a driver rear-ending another driver, Crittenden said.

The changes will do a couple of things:

• The connecting ramp from southbound I-135 to I-235 will be replaced with a longer ramp that will allow for smoother traffic flow to I-235 heading west.

• The current connection from northbound I-135 to 1-235 going west, now a low-speed cloverleaf ramp, will be replaced with a much more efficient flyover, similar to the Kellogg Flyover about 5 miles to the south. The new flyover will connect to I-135 near 37th Street North, well south of the interchange.

A more recent flyover was completed at I-235 and Kellogg. That flyover helped alleviate traffic concerns by eliminating the cloverleaf ramp, Crittenden said.

“It’s pretty amazing when you don’t have to reduce your speed by 40-50 mph” how many fewer problems you see, he said.

There is also work just south of the proposed construction on I-135 and just west on I-235. All of the construction is expected to be completed by 2025, Janzen said.

The upcoming project won’t fix everything that’s wrong, but it will make a substantial dent in the problem, said Tom Hein, spokesman for the Kansas Department of Transportation.

Contributing: Dion Lefler with The Eagle

This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 5:27 PM.