Join our Mailing List!
Please click the link below to sign up for your community paper mailing list. Stay up to date with all the events going on in your community as well as the latest news.Sign Up Today!
After two years, South Metro Connection is dead
By: Chuck Kurtz, Staff writer
The South Metro Connection, which would have created a transportation corridor between southeastern Johnson County in Kansas and northwestern Cass County in Missouri, has gone the way of the once-touted 21st Century Parkway.
The project is dead.
A study committee spent two years looking at the project and recommended building a parkway with 45 mph speed limits, but the Johnson County Board of Commissioners voted 6-1 last month to discontinue any further notions of a connector roadway system.
So now what?
The Kansas Department of Transportation rather than local government entities is now taking the lead in developing an arterial roadway that would loop through extreme southern Johnson County or possibly dip into northern Miami County.
“What we did earlier this month was voted to connect into Missouri on existing roadways,” said County Chairwoman Annabeth Surbaugh. “The study took a year-and-a-half and initially the plan called for more of an I-35 type of highway and then it became a parkway.
“There were a lot of meetings and what was trying to be done was that the plan was trying to forge a roadway into the middle of an area that is developed instead of planning a roadway ahead of development.”
Mac Andrew, Johnson County Department of Public Works and Infrastructure director, said opposition to the project, some of it sincere and some misdirected, led commissioners to vote down the plan.
“I’ve been in this business for more than 40 years,” Andrew said, “and although people like an I-35 three or four blocks away from them, they enjoy the short distance to get on and go.
“But when it’s in their backyard, they don’t want it. There was a lot of opposition, some rational and some emotional. There were people that didn’t want a road, nothing to go through there.”
The board voted to eliminate the “corridor to be determined” designation from the county’s Comprehensive Arterial Road Network Plan study area in the southeast portion of Johnson County and add a Type 1 designation to extend a two-lane roadway at 179th Street between Metcalf and Nall avenues.
“It’s important for the county to plan for long-term transportation needs,” Commissioner David Lindstrom said. “Johnson County grows by about 10,000 people a year and 30 percent of that growth is happening in the Blue Valley District; that’s about 3,000 people a year and in 10 years, that’s 30,000 additional people.
“We need to start looking at roads now. I had no pre-conceived ideas about (the South Metro Connection) of whether it should be, but I think (the commission) came to the right conclusions. This is a very environmentally sensitive area.”
Lindstrom said the board needs to pursue the improvement of 179th Street from Metcalf to Nall, establish a park plan, establish a comprehensive rights-of-way acquisition strategy and conduct a highway study in southern Johnson County to address future infrastructure and transportation requirements.
Andrew said the study addressed environmental issues.
“There was some opposition about what the road might do to the environment,” he said. “Our intent was not to destroy, but to go in and make an attractive parkway, not a highway, with a 45 mph speed limit, landscaped trails, paths and an attractive bridge.”
Roadway improvements need not be a negative, Andrew said.
“When you create a parkway with parks and neighborhoods, it becomes a positive,” he said. “With sewers coming in, it’s my experience, the land doesn’t stay the same. When sewers come in, there’s going to be some kind of development.
“It’s going to become congested.”
Now it is up to KDOT to determine the best connector road for the area, he said.
“There’s a connector toll road west of 7 Highway being contemplated,” Andrew said. “What KDOT will do is to work with the five counties to develop plans and look at land use and then decide if a corridor makes sense for a southern highway. In my mind, it probably will look kind of like what was proposed with the 21st Century Parkway.
“I think it’s several years off, but it will be an alternative highway that will handle more truck traffic.”
“They’ll take a look at all the development plans and figure out where a road might be, either in southern Johnson County or perhaps northern Miami County, going west towards Douglas and including Wyandotte and Cass counties.”
printable version
e-mail this story
The project is dead.
A study committee spent two years looking at the project and recommended building a parkway with 45 mph speed limits, but the Johnson County Board of Commissioners voted 6-1 last month to discontinue any further notions of a connector roadway system.
So now what?
The Kansas Department of Transportation rather than local government entities is now taking the lead in developing an arterial roadway that would loop through extreme southern Johnson County or possibly dip into northern Miami County.
“What we did earlier this month was voted to connect into Missouri on existing roadways,” said County Chairwoman Annabeth Surbaugh. “The study took a year-and-a-half and initially the plan called for more of an I-35 type of highway and then it became a parkway.
“There were a lot of meetings and what was trying to be done was that the plan was trying to forge a roadway into the middle of an area that is developed instead of planning a roadway ahead of development.”
Mac Andrew, Johnson County Department of Public Works and Infrastructure director, said opposition to the project, some of it sincere and some misdirected, led commissioners to vote down the plan.
“I’ve been in this business for more than 40 years,” Andrew said, “and although people like an I-35 three or four blocks away from them, they enjoy the short distance to get on and go.
“But when it’s in their backyard, they don’t want it. There was a lot of opposition, some rational and some emotional. There were people that didn’t want a road, nothing to go through there.”
The board voted to eliminate the “corridor to be determined” designation from the county’s Comprehensive Arterial Road Network Plan study area in the southeast portion of Johnson County and add a Type 1 designation to extend a two-lane roadway at 179th Street between Metcalf and Nall avenues.
“It’s important for the county to plan for long-term transportation needs,” Commissioner David Lindstrom said. “Johnson County grows by about 10,000 people a year and 30 percent of that growth is happening in the Blue Valley District; that’s about 3,000 people a year and in 10 years, that’s 30,000 additional people.
“We need to start looking at roads now. I had no pre-conceived ideas about (the South Metro Connection) of whether it should be, but I think (the commission) came to the right conclusions. This is a very environmentally sensitive area.”
Lindstrom said the board needs to pursue the improvement of 179th Street from Metcalf to Nall, establish a park plan, establish a comprehensive rights-of-way acquisition strategy and conduct a highway study in southern Johnson County to address future infrastructure and transportation requirements.
Andrew said the study addressed environmental issues.
“There was some opposition about what the road might do to the environment,” he said. “Our intent was not to destroy, but to go in and make an attractive parkway, not a highway, with a 45 mph speed limit, landscaped trails, paths and an attractive bridge.”
Roadway improvements need not be a negative, Andrew said.
“When you create a parkway with parks and neighborhoods, it becomes a positive,” he said. “With sewers coming in, it’s my experience, the land doesn’t stay the same. When sewers come in, there’s going to be some kind of development.
“It’s going to become congested.”
Now it is up to KDOT to determine the best connector road for the area, he said.
“There’s a connector toll road west of 7 Highway being contemplated,” Andrew said. “What KDOT will do is to work with the five counties to develop plans and look at land use and then decide if a corridor makes sense for a southern highway. In my mind, it probably will look kind of like what was proposed with the 21st Century Parkway.
“I think it’s several years off, but it will be an alternative highway that will handle more truck traffic.”
“They’ll take a look at all the development plans and figure out where a road might be, either in southern Johnson County or perhaps northern Miami County, going west towards Douglas and including Wyandotte and Cass counties.”