Allen County roads are going to carry much more heavy traffic from highway construction this year than the Register reported Wednesday.
Darrin Petrowsky, area engineer for the Kansas Department of Transportation, told the Register in an email Wednesday afternoon that he misheard a question about highway construction and gave figures for partial replacement work on U.S. 169. The question had to do with the rebuild of U.S. 54.
“I had the U.S. 169 project on my mind,” Petrowsky said.
The difference in the two projects is substantial.
Just parts of the U.S. 169 pavement in Allen County are being replaced in a project that is under way. Concrete removed will be hauled to two sites over county roads.
The U.S. 54 project later this year will entail ripping up about 5 miles of four-lane pavement between Iola and the east edge of LaHarpe.
That will create about 90,000 tons of excavated material to be hauled to disposal sites yet determined. If it is hauled in 25-ton semi-trailer increments, about 3,600 loads will go over county roads.
As Bill King, director of Public Works, pointed out, state highways with nine inches of pavement are designed to cope repeatedly with heavy truck loads. County roads aren’t, which leaves King with concerns for what may occur.
County road work to take bigger toll than thought
