Wichita seeks to change freeway design and protect abandoned rail bridge for bikeway
The city of Wichita plans to work with state and federal officials to redesign part of the planned interchange at the Kellogg and I-235 freeways to preserve a bridge that the city wants to use for a bike and pedestrian path linking downtown Wichita to Garden Plain.
The city is hoping to save an abandoned railroad bridge across the Big Ditch south of Kellogg and east of Hoover, now the eastern end point of the Prairie Sunset Trail, said Gary Janzen, city engineer.
But the bridge, at the perfect spot to extend the bike trail, also happens to be at the same spot where the state Department of Transportation planned to sink a pier for a ramp in the next phase of construction on the freeway interchange.
“That ramp is going to have to be redesigned to move that pier,” Janzen said.
The city will need approval from KDOT and the Army Corps of Engineers, he said.
“We’ll overcome it, it’s just going to take a little time,” Janzen said. “There are steps we have to follow or the whole thing could fall apart on us.”
If all goes well, it’s possible the new bikeway could be available as early as 2022, he said.
KDOT spokesman Tom Hein said the state is willing to work with the city. He said the bridge was actually slated for demolition during the first phase of the interchange reconstruction project, completed in 2019.
“Our transportation engineer said let’s just wait and not tear it down during this phase and let’s see what we can do,” Hein said.
The bike path project has a $4.5 million budget spread over two years, Janzen said.
The city has hired TranSystems Corp., same company that designed the first phase of the freeway interchange — to plot out a route for the trail from the corner of Douglas and Sycamore to the current terminus of the Prairie Sunset Trail in Garden Plain.
On Tuesday, the council is scheduled to add $49,000 of work to that contract.
The new work will include evaluating the railroad bridge to make sure it’s structurally sound and can be converted for bike-path use, and to begin figuring out the best way to build a tunnel under the future freeway interchange.
There’s an old tunnel there now, but it will have to be removed to accommodate grading for a new flyover segment that will be built at the site, Janzen said.
The contractor will also collect information on water flow in the ditch to ensure the bridge and the redesigned freeway pier won’t cause a flood hazard. That information will be needed for the city to get permits from the Corps of Engineers, Janzen said.
The existing trail is a 15-mile gravel path built on a former railroad right-of-way that parallels Kellogg and runs from west Wichita through Goddard and out to Garden Plain.
The trail is maintained by a nonprofit group called the Prairie Travelers.
This story was originally published April 26, 2021 at 2:56 PM.
