Praise due those who pushed for Big Ditch flyover

The Big Ditch has been a blessing for flood control but a curse for traffic in west Wichita, where development has boomed in the decades since the floodway was built. So it was great to see one long-sought fix open Friday – the flyover bridges connecting I-235 to 13th Street west of the ditch. The $35 million project, two decades in the making, won’t remedy every bottleneck and inconvenience faced by west-siders, especially as long as a new interchange at I-235 and Kellogg remains on the to-do list. And the Big Ditch arguably needs more bridges. But all the elected officials who kept pushing for this one deserve praise and thanks. – Rhonda Holman

This story was originally published November 21, 2014 at 6:05 PM.