The Kansas Department of Transportation has presented its final recommendations for improvements along K-254 in Sedgwick and Butler Counties.
The recommendations include short-term and long-term strategies to plan for future development and traffic movement along the highway. The short term plan is to manage K-254 as an expressway with the current intersections. That will include lighting at the intersections, extensions of existing turn lanes, new turn lanes and new acceleration lanes.
The long-term plan is to convert K-254 into a freeway. Project Manager David Seitz says the concept is to remove the intersections that exist today and replace them with interchanges to enhance the safety of accessing local roads. Interchanges will be constructed at Greenwich Road, Butler Road, and Main Street in El Dorado. An overpass is recommended at 127th Street East and County Line Road. The long-term plan also includes full closure of the intersections at 143rd Street East and Meadowlark Road. A frontage road will be constructed from Greenwich Road to Adams Road to provide local access. There will also be interchanges at Adams Road, River Valley Road and Ohio Street. Overpasses will be constructed at Tawakoni Road and Hunter Road, with closure recommended for the connections at Indianola Road, Arapaho Road and Shumway Road.
The improvements will be done in two phases at an estimated cost of around $50 million.
The K-254 Corridor Management Plan includes 22 miles of K-254, which is four lanes wide and extends from Wichita on the west to El Dorado on the east (and within 1 mile of the highway). It is a strategic effort to anticipate future land development along the corridor and provide access that serves the communities while keeping traffic moving efficiently and safely. The highway has high volumes of traffic, with the heaviest activity near Wichita and near El Dorado, and there have been several fatal crashes along the highway in recent years.
[ image: KDOT – Long-term concept for K-254 at Hillside ]