Anyone who has driven U.S. 69 in Overland Park knows rush hour traffic is getting worse and the chance of accidents more prevalent.
In fact, it’s the most congested four-lane highway in Kansas, with 80,000 vehicles per day.
So Overland Park leaders are urgently appealing to the state for highway funds to help widen U.S. 69 to six lanes from I-435 south to 159th Street.
“This by far is the No. 1 project that will keep the economic impact coming to the state and to the city of Overland Park,” Mayor Carl Gerlach told members of a joint legislative transportation task force meeting Thursday. The room was packed with leaders from Johnson County’s biggest communities, all pitching their most important transportation needs for the next decade.
Lenexa wants money for a K-10 and Lone Elm Road interchange, along with improvements on I-435. Olathe wants interchange upgrades at I-35 and 119th Street. And Gardner needs help to stop all the accidents near I-35 and Gardner Road.
But those needs collectively amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, in a state that borrowed more than $2 billion from its highway fund during the Brownback administration and must pay that money back. The state projects it will need to spend $600 million annually in the next few years just to cover road preservation and unfinished T-Works projects, which are part of a 10-year Kansas transportation program adopted in 2010.
(Read more: KC Star Local News)