Shawnee County is incurring considerable expense as a result of its commitment to accommodate motorists during a planned two-year project to widen S.E. 29th Street near Lake Shawnee, county commissioners were told Thursday.
“Traffic control is eating us up on costs,” deputy public works director Tom Flanagan told Commissioners Kevin Cook and Bob Archer.
The county could cut project expenses considerably if it shut down S.E. 29th altogether, Flanagan said at Thursday’s commission meeting, where Commissioner Shelly Buhler was out of town and absent.
County public works and solid waste department director Curt Niehaus told commissioners the county plans to accommodate motorists by providing at least one lane each for eastbound and westbound traffic for all but 81 days of the project being carried out in 2019 and 2020 to widen a roughly 1.2-mile stretch of S.E. 29th.
(Read more: Local – The Topeka Capital-Journal)