BAXTER SPRINGS, Kan. —
The first few miles of a planned freeway will start at the Kansas state line near Interstate 44 and continue northwest about two miles where it meets Kansas Highway 26.
That was the determination Thursday of members of the U.S. Highway 166 Advisory Committee, advising state transportation officials and consultants about how they want to spend the first $38 million allocated for the project.
The decision was helped by an announcement by advisory committee member Alan Mauk, transportation consultant for the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma. Mauk told the group that the tribe has allocated $3 million to make improvements to interchange 1 at I-44, starting at the roundabout at the tribe’s Downstream Casino Resort. Mauk said the project would start in February and be complete within six months. It is to include a lighted intersection with traffic signals.
Mauk said plans for a second hotel at the casino are in the works.
He said he would provide the plans to Kansas Department of Transportation officials.
The future U.S. Highway 400 is proposed as a four-lane freeway. After reaching Highway 26, it would head west, looping toward the north between Baxter Springs and Riverton, then north on a corridor parallel to existing U.S. Highway 69, 400 and 160, but a few miles to the west, continuing to the Crawford County line.
“It just makes sense to start on the south end and work north,” said advisory committee member Jim Dahmen, of Columbus.
Steve Rockers, KDOT road design leader, said the freeway would narrow to an expressway for about a half-mile as it approached the roundabout.
Group members decided that if any money remained from the $38 million after the project reached Highway 26, it would be used to acquire land for the next stage of the project.
Advisory committee member Jim Aubuchon is with the Highway 69 Association of Kansas. He said after the meeting that the plan fits in well with his group’s plan to have a four-lane U.S. Highway 69 from Kansas City to Interstate 44.
“I think all the transportation advocates are ecstatic” about what he termed “punching a hole in I-44.”
Aubuchon said having $38 million to spend is “a good start.”
Rockers said bids are scheduled to be sought on the project in 2017. The next steps will include a concept study, survey work, cost estimates and design work.
“That whole corridor’s just ripe for development,” Mauk told reporters after the meeting.
Cost estimate
STEVE ROCKERS, road design leader for the Kansas Department of Transportation, said the typical cost estimate for building a freeway is $10 million a mile.
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Advisory group decides freeway should start near Interstate 44
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