City and consulting engineers provided the first look at a $3.5 million project to widen Kanis Road from South Shackleford Road west Monday evening for about 50 landowners, business owners and developers who would be affected by the project.
"It's been a long time coming," said Lance Hines, a city director who represents Ward 5, which contains part of the project area extending west to Gamble Road.
Doris Wright, a city director who represents Ward 6, which also contains part of the project, also attended the meeting.
But Mike Hood, manager of the civil engineering division within the city Public Works Department, told the crowd that the project's estimated construction cost is more than the $2.85 million the city has allocated.
"There's not enough money to fund everything we show tonight," he said. "With the money we've got, we're going to try to build as much as we can."
Under the proposal, Kanis will be widened from Shackleford to South Bowman Road, a distance of less than a mile, to five lanes, from the existing two lanes, and to three lanes from Bowman to Gamble Road, a distance of less than a half mile.
The project includes sidewalks, curbs, gutters and an underground drainage system. No provisions were made for bicycle lanes.
About 20,000 vehicles travel daily on Kanis between Shackleford and Bowman. It drops down to 12,000 between Bowman and Gamble, and to about 7,000 vehicles west of Gamble.
"Functionally, after 15,000 vehicles [per day], it bogs down traffic," Hood said. "We're well beyond what is recommended for a two-lane road. [The project] will certainly help move things along a little bit better."
The traffic will only continue to increase, given the additional residential and commercial development planned west of the project, he said.
"Whatever traffic we've got today will grow in the future," Hood said.
Kanis, in the area of the project, already is lined with a mix of mainly commercial development and some homes, but several nearby residential developments also feed into the street, one of the city's main east-west arteries.
The project is "completion of the master street plan," Hines said. "Completing Kanis to master street plan specs is going to help" traffic in the area.
None of those in attendance spoke publicly at the meeting when offered the opportunity, but most of them pored over the maps and peppered engineers with questions later in smaller sessions as part of the hour-long hearing in a meeting room at the Centre at University Park at 6401 W. 12th St.
Hood told the audience that the plans were only preliminary, but because it was a major project, he wanted to give residents and business owners an early opportunity to see what the project engineers had in mind. A second hearing will be held before construction likely would begin in 2015 or 2016, Hood said.
The proposed improvements will come at a cost to property owners, who will have to give up or sell some of their property to accommodate the widening project, which will take an average of 20 feet on each side of the street between Shackleford and Bowman.
If property owners decline to donate their property needed for the project, which seems likely, according to Hood, he said the city will use an appraiser to establish a fair price to pay for the property needed.
Don Houff of Don Houff Plumbing at 11802 Kanis Road said the traffic congestion was less a problem for people in the area than it was for the people who pass through the area.
Most of the property will be taken from the north side in his area of the project, Houff said. His business has been on the north side of Kanis since his father opened it in 1983.
But he remained open to what the engineers' final design is.
"We'll just have to wait on the final plan," he said. "Something has to be done."
Elaine K. Jones, owner and president of The Title Co., said she and her husband purchased a property at 11601 Kanis Road three months ago to house their business. She couldn't be happier with the project.
"It's just wonderful," she said.
Steve W. Jones Jr., her husband and the company's vice president of finance, also welcomed the project, calling it long overdue, but didn't see in the plans a stoplight for the intersection of Kanis and Autumn Road as he had hoped.
He noted that once the nearby project to improve the Interstate 430/Interstate 630 interchange is completed, Autumn Road will be the first opportunity for westbound motorists coming off the interchange to go south. That, he predicted, will increase traffic on Autumn Road, which he said is in poor condition.
Metro on 06/17/2014