Bicycle group latest to raise access concerns about K-10/Kasold Drive intersection

photo by: Nick Krug

Motorists along East 1200 Road approach a stop sign at an intersection that connects East 1200 Road and the South Lawrence Trafficway just south of the Kasold curve on Tuesday, March 29, 2016.

Access concerns have again been raised regarding the Kansas Department of Transportation’s plans for the Kansas Highway 10 intersection at Kasold Drive and East 1200 Road.

The Lawrence-Douglas County Bicycle Advisory Committee is asking the city of Lawrence and Douglas County to work with KDOT to prove a safe bicycle crossing at the intersection. The letter from the committee to the Lawrence and Douglas County commissions states the committee is “extremely concerned” about the safety of bicyclists at the intersection and ask for a safe route through or around it. “It is a heavily used cycling corridor that cannot be ignored. Cyclists will go through the intersection regardless of what improvements are constructed.”

Consideration of the letter is on Wednesday’s Douglas County Commission agenda.

The committee’s letter provides no suggestions about how bicycles could safely cross K-10, but does refer to a possible route around it, which was shared in a KDOT fact sheet provided at one of the open houses the agency hosted regarding possible changes to the intersection. That route would preserve bike connectivity with a path under Yankee Tank Creek bridge. The bridge spans K-10 just to the east of the intersection.

Committee member Bill Anderson said there was no way an at-grade bicycle crossing would be safe with traffic moving at 70 mph at the intersection.

“A thousand people use that intersection a week,” he said. “it needs to be off-grade. All bicycle crossings on highways should be off-grade.”

In June, KDOT ended a four-month review of the possible changes at the intersection, which is about a mile west of the K-10/US Highway 59 interchange, with the announcement it would be converted to a right-in, right-out configuration. The change would involve installation of flexible horizontal markers between K-10’s eastbound and westbound lanes at the intersection to prevent vehicles from crossing the center line.

KDOT is to make the changes at the intersection before the South Lawrence Trafficway opens this fall. The opening of the four-lane section east of U.S. Highway 59 is expected to increase the number of vehicles on K-10 at the Kasold Drive/East 1200 Road intersection from 8,100 vehicles a day to 16,800.

Four options were studied during KDOT’s review of the intersection. The other options were to leave the intersection unchanged, install a traffic signal at the site and to close all access to and from Kasold Drive and East 1200 Road.

KDOT selected the right-in, right-out solution despite the traffic signal option being the most popular from public comment and among Lawrence and Douglas County commissioners.