The Garden City Telegram
Email this story | Add Your Comment
| Read (0) Comments
Next step, prioritizing
Published 5/12/2009 in Local News
By STEPHANIE FARLEY
Legislators, congressmen and others have praised the cities of Garden City, Dodge City and Liberal for trying to think regionally and partnering to boost the chances of transportation goals that would better the region.
One of the bigger goals of the group of three cities, known as the Southwest Kansas Coalition, is to have a combination of four-laned highway and passing lanes along U.S. Highway 83 from Liberal to Garden City, U.S. Highway 50/400 from Garden City to Mullinville and then along U.S. Highway 54 from Liberal to Mullinville. They would form a triangle of four-laned highways between the three cities.
On Monday, though, as representatives of the three cities met at the Garden City Administrative Center, Garden City City Manager Matt Allen told the group that during a recent trip to Washington, D.C., congressmen exposed a weakness of the group. If the group was given a sum of money to achieve one or some of the transportation goals for the area, the group doesn't know which goal it would focus on first, Allen said.
So the coalition now must prioritize its transportation goals. One of the goals has been to continue adding passing lanes along U.S. 54 from the Oklahoma state line to Mullinville, with the long-range goal of a four-lane highway from Mullinville to Kingman. The group discussed whether it does any good advocating for four lanes on a stretch of highway that none of the city representatives live along or near.
Liberal Commissioner Tim Long said he felt the coalition's priority should be to add passing lanes — at least passing lanes before four-laned highway. Fellow Liberal Commissioner Bob Carlile told Long that if the area received passing lanes, he didn't feel the cities would ever see four-lane highways.
Long questioned advocating for four-laned highway to Mullinville when he felt the goal would be achieved on its own and that four-lanes eventually would reach Mullinville regardless of whether the coalition advocated for it.
Dodge City Commissioner Rick Sowers said that while none of the representatives and officials live near that stretch of highway, he knows the highway being four-laned from Kingman to Mullinville will benefit the area. And if the group gets the ball rolling, four-laned highway could reach Mullinville quicker, which would mean it eventually could reach southwest Kansas quicker. If there's already the plan to four-lane that stretch, Sowers said, then let's get it done faster.
"It's going to help you immensely," lobbyist Robin Jennison, with Jennison Government Services, told the group of four-laning the stretch.
The coalition hired Jennison last year to lobby for the coalition's goals and keep an eye on legislation that could affect southwest and western Kansas.
If the highway is four-laned from Mullinville to Kingman, Jennison said, that could stand to improve traffic numbers along the whole stretch of highway, including U.S. 54 from Liberal to Mullinville and U.S. 50/400 from Garden City and Dodge City to Mullinville.
Jennison said that by 2030, the Kansas Department of Transportation estimates that western portions of U.S. 50/400 will be congested with traffic. If the cities want to address the traffic congestion at least by that time, he said, the coalition needs to start now and start building more allies to get the stretch of highway improved.
The coalition took no action Monday, with each of the cities agreeing to individually discuss prioritizing the transportation goals. The coalition's executive committee, consisting of the mayors and city managers, also will work on the issue.
Allen said it's important the group address the issue even if it did receive money for transportation improvements, since all the coalition currently has is a broad policy statement with no idea of what goal to go after first.
The coalition's general policy statement starts off reading, "Transportation infrastructure is critical to the safety of our citizens as well as a vital means of maintaining and growing our regional economy. We feel that infrastructure development in the western half of the state should be a top priority as the state of Kansas works to cultivate regional partnerships to maintain and expand this important asset through the development of a comprehensive transportation plan...."
Other priorities Jennison suggested to the group were establishing U.S. 400 as a priority corridor, as well as establishing an east/west freeway/expressway in the southern half of the state.
What do you think should be the Southwest Kansas Coalition's top transportation goal? Talk about it at SWKTalk.com.
Found 0 comment(s)!
Twitter Updates
