Photo by Carly Pearson
Construction on Highway 50 west of the turnpike is progressing with a new roundabout halfway completed.
Step by step, Emporia’s “spaghetti bowl” is being unknotted. And one major tangle should be untied soon.
The north half of U.S. Highway 50 near the Kansas Turnpike will reopen to traffic in two to four weeks, according to construction manager Tony Menke of the Kansas Department of Transportation.
At that point, a long-standing detour can be removed and surfacing work can begin on the south half of the highway.
The overall project to clean up the jumble of access roads leading to and from the Emporia entrance to the Kansas Turnpike is still about a month and a half behind.
But there is more visible evidence of things moving along than there’s ever been before. In a week or so, girders will be up for a bridge carrying I-35 over the new northern roundabout, then work on the deck will begin soon after.
Piers have started to go up for the new Graphic Arts bridge. In about a month, the new Emporia toll plaza should be in place.
“It’s good to see the progress continuing and know that the public can see the progress going on,” Menke said. “Some of the other work we do, it’s not so easy to see the progress being made. It’s nice to have good visual progress.”
When done, the project should change the criss-cross of roads there into more straightforward approaches. Two new roundabouts will help route traffic between U.S. Highway 50, Interstate 35 and the Kansas Turnpike. Five bridges will have been replaced. Southbound I-35 and its bridge over the turnpike should be open by or before late November, Menke said.
Long periods of rainy and cold weather earlier this year threw the project behind. And while the hot summer has meant that workers haven’t lost any more time, they haven’t really gained any, either.
“We’re gaining a little, but not much,” Menke said. “Where we can gain ground and get back to where we should be would be this winter, depending on how that goes.”
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