Iola officials should know by fall the final price tag associated with rebuilding U.S. 54 through Iola.
Assistant City Administrator Corey Schinstock said he is still awaiting engineers’ estimates on utility replacements along the route, namely the water line.
“We hope to have the numbers this fall,” Schinstock said at Monday’s City Council meeting.”
The price tag will determine how much of the highway will be replaced, and whether other elements, such as redoing a retaining wall where the highway curves at the First Street intersection, are possible.
“The numbers might come at you pretty fast, but it’s nothing you haven’t heard before,” City Administrator Matt Rehder added. “The numbers haven’t gotten any cheaper.”
The price tag has played a big role in the planning process.
Originally pegged at about $9 million to redo the highway from State Street to the east city limits, that cost skyrocketed to $23 million, well above what the city could afford. Council members put the project on hold for a year to see if the city could drum up any more financing.
That financing, a $4 million Transportation Alternatives grant, gave the city a lifeline last fall.
Engineers subsequently shortened the length of the restoration, to Kentucky Street instead of the east city lmiits.
The hope is for the city’s share to be pared to about $12 million.
“There are still a lot of moving parts,” Schinstock told the Register. “We’re still awaiting options from our engineers to determine if anything else will need to be cut.”
THE reworked thoroughfare will reduce U.S. 54 from four-lane traffic to three-lane, with one lane from each direction and a turning lane in the middle, Schinstock noted.
That, in turn, will mean wider sidewalks along much of the route, part of the prerequisites to secure the TA funding.
The goal of the TA Program is to create safer, more walkable and bike-friendly routes, and will include other elements, such as cross walks, handicap ramps and signals.
IF THE CHIPS fall correctly, water line work could begin as early as this fall, with the first contracts for the road replacement being finalized next February.
