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| Rural couple challenges plans for work on intersection |
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| News | |||
| Written by Robin Hixson | |||
| Wednesday, 28 January 2009 08:59 | |||
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A rural Osawatomie couple has consulted with a private contractor in their efforts to challenge a $1 million county project to improve the intersection of John Brown Highway and Pressonville Road. In a letter to the Miami County Commission, Randy Kitchen, who sits on the Miami County Planning Commission, and his wife, Misty Kitchen, expressed several objections to the project as it is currently planned. The Kitchens have declined an offer to sell a portion of their property for the project and are scheduled to meet with the county commission today. They challenged the necessity of spending $1 million on the project, saying specifications required in order to obtain the Kansas Department of Transportation grant are not necessary or relevant to the project and would slow its completion, forcing five to six months of detouring traffic over narrow gravel roads. They also objected to lowering the elevation of John Brown Highway with the project area and said lowering of Pressonville Road should be minimized. Also, relocation of telephone and electric utilities required by the project could cause disruption of service for an unknown period of time. One of their greatest concerns about the project was its effectiveness in improving traffic safety. “This option, while improving visibility to one area, will undoubtedly have the opposite effect on the intersection of Winchester Road and John Brown Highway, making it even more dangerous than the current situation,” they wrote. The Kitchens said information they had received from a private contractor indicated that a better and less expensive alternative is possible at a cost of about $400,000. They believe their alternative plan, which would move Pressonville Road to intersect with John Brown Highway at a hillcrest, would eliminate cut down of the highway and reduce cut down of Pressonville Road, and would provide adequate line of sight from all directions. They said their plan would also eliminate road closures, causing only lane interruptions and no disruption of utilities. Evans said the plan the Kitchens propose is basically the same plan the county originally had in mind but abandoned when a professional consulting engineer said it wouldn’t achieve the desired result. Evans has arranged for the consultant to meet with the county commissioners during their Feb. 4 work session to discuss the Kitchens’ alternative plan, which she said does not account for all of the expenses its implementation would incur. The John Brown Highway/Pressonville Road intersection improvement project is partially funded by a $300,000 KDOT grant, and the remainder of the funding will come from sales tax revenues. The project will involve reconstruction of the intersection of John Brown Highway and Pressonville Road, considered a dangerous intersection because of the area’s hilly topography. The project is scheduled to let in April, and construction is expected to begin in June. This will be one of the first projects in Kansas under the Federal Highway Administration’s High Risk Rural Roads program.
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