The Garden City Telegram
Email this story | Add Your Comment
| Read (0) Comments
Coalition hones in on transportation
Published 2/5/2009 in News : Politics
By STEPHANIE FARLEY
DODGE CITY — A lot of things have changed in southwest Kansas since the last long-range comprehensive transportation plan started in 1999, including WindRiver Grain starting up in Garden City and a growing ethanol industry, according to Robin Jennison, the lobbyist for the Southwest Kansas Coalition.
The 10-year transportation plan expires this year, and talk is ongoing at both local and state government levels on how to fund another transportation plan. Jennison, a former Kansas House speaker who's been hired by the coalition, spoke to its members Wednesday on the transportation issue and happenings with the State Legislature.
Jennison said growth in southwest Kansas since the last transportation plan have changed the traffic patterns and the types of vehicles traveling in those traffic patterns.
These are some of the things the area needs to start communicating to legislators, Kansas Department of Transportation officials and others at the state level, Jennison said.
Prioritizing the greatest transportation needs — and those transportation improvements that can benefit the region — is the direction the coalition decided to head Wednesday night as members, including the governing bodies and city managers of Dodge City, Liberal and Garden City, agreed to hold an executive committee meeting to prioritize the region's transportation needs and focus more on how to get state and other officials to recognize those needs.
There needs to be a type of long-range transportation plan for the area, Jennison said.
In September 2008, more than 80 people, including representatives from the three cities, met in Ulysses with members of the Transportation-Leveraging Investments in Kansas, or T-LINK, Task Force to discuss what improvements and projects need to be included in the next transportation plan and how to fund the plan.
During that meeting, Garden City and Finney County representatives spoke about projects they'd like to see for the region. They include:
n support and funding to four-lane U.S. Highway 50/400 from Mullinville to Garden City, starting on the stretch between Garden City and Dodge City.
n widening of U.S. Highway 83 north to I-70, including passing lanes.
Jennison believes the stretch of highway will eventually be four-laned to Mullinville. "Someday it's gonna make it" to that point and beyond, he said, adding the coalition needs to find a way to speed up the process.
The coalition was formed to ensure mutually beneficial conditions in the region by advocating on behalf of a policy agenda promoting geographic, economic, population and other factors influencing the development needs of the region.
Garden City Manager Matt Allen said he doesn't understand why four-laning had to occur from east to west in the state, rather than simply starting four-laning in the western part.
He said he thought the group was selling itself short in thinking it needed to pick one of several highway four-lane projects, and really should be shooting for a transportation connector in the region by creating a triangle-type four-lane highway system.
Dodge City Commissioner Jim Sherer said he doesn't understand why the state can't put together a good plan for at least passing lanes on highways in the state's western part.
Doug LaFreniere, vice mayor for Liberal, works in the safety department for National Carriers, which handles a lot of the cattle trucks for the area.
LaFreniere takes a lot of the calls to the company of near-misses between vehicles and cattle trucks. He told the group the company figures it's averaging about nine near-misses a week with vehicles along the region's highways.
Those involve people overestimating the time they have to enter the highway and end up pulling out in front of the trucks. There also are incidents involving vehicles passing the trucks.
Passing lanes are a must, LaFreniere said, but he feels to only go after passing lanes is "settling." There need to be four-lane highways in the region, he said, adding he wishes some of the representatives and officials in Topeka could hear the calls he receives from people upset, shaken by a near-miss with one of the large trucks.
"It's getting worse," he said of the number of near-misses.
Fellow Liberal Commissioner Dave Harrison, president of Okie Cattle Co. LLC, said the states of New Mexico and Oklahoma seem to be four-laning more highways.
"Kansas is sitting here," he said of four-laning not occurring in the western part of the state.
Harrison said he believes the group needs to get serious on the transportation issue and pursue four-laning of the region's highways.
Jennison said he remembered reading an article in the 1990s, during the 1989 transportation plan, that stated the best economy in the Midwest could be found in Kansas. The article placed the state's economy solely on the back of the 1989 transportation plan and the construction and work it was creating, Jennison said.
Jennison said that while there has been some discussion in Topeka of the next transportation plan and how to go about funding and organizing it, "they've been totally focused on the (state) budget."
Jennison said he feels what is needed by the coalition and area to prepare itself for the next transportation plan and possibly funding from President Barack Obama's stimulus package is to have a vision for transportation needs in the region.
Found 0 comment(s)!
Twitter Updates
