The yearlong wait for a new interchange in the northern end of the city of Leavenworth is almost over.
Though there is still some additional work to be done at the site like cleanup and seeding for grass, officials and representatives from various agencies gathered Friday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the new 20th Street and Metropolitan Avenue interchange that is thought to be open in the next week.
In June 2009, some of those officials stood in the same place in order to break ground on the project, estimated to cost $6 million. Funding for the work came from a number of different sources, including a combined total of more than $3 million in federal funding from the county’s federal delegation of Rep. Lynn Jenkins and Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback; $1.15 million from the Kansas Department of Transportation; and $600,000 from Leavenworth County. The remaining funds came from the city of Leavenworth.
But the city also had support from Fort Leavenworth and the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth in other ways, like donation of right-of-way for the project.
The improvements have been a long time coming, according to Bob Patzwald, deputy director of public works for the city of Leavenworth.
“It’s just a very slow process,” of coordinating support from the different agencies, he said.
It started when KDOT widened Kansas Highway 7/U.S. Highway 73 in the 80s and Patzwald said the city and the county petitioned to have a bridge installed for the extension, with the agreement that the city would eventually build 20th Street underneath it. The money was never there to complete the extension of 20th Street, he said. In the mid-1990s a study was performed on the traffic at Metropolitan Avenue and 18th Street that found a signal that KDOT agreed to fund was warranted.
But Patzwald said the city requested, and KDOT agreed, to hold out until the pieces were in place for a more comprehensive improvement.
Greg Kaaz is the president of Lexeco Construction, the general contractor for the project that was designed by Transystems. He said he is happy with the final result of the construction, despite delays of about a month due to weather.
On and off ramps connect 20th Street to Metropolitan Avenue and the extension of 20th Street underneath Metropolitan allows easier access to the fort’s Hancock Gate and the U.S. Penitentiary grounds. The finished project also provided an opportunity to eliminate a dangerous intersection with K-7/U.S. 73 at 18th Street.
