Construction is about to ramp up on a busy Emporia street.
The city is beginning work officially on Commercial Street from Kansas Avenue to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks Wednesday. This involves asphalt pavement milling and overlay over the next three weeks, weather permitting.
Commercial Street will remain open to traffic, but there will be lane shifts and temporary closures. Meanwhile, side roads connecting to Commercial in the construction zone may have brief closures, so all local drivers are encouraged to either find other routes or exercise patience and proceed caution as the project gets underway.
This is the first half of the city’s planned road construction on Kansas Highway 99 through town. The second half involves Merchant Street from 12th Avenue north to Interstate 35 on the west edge of Emporia State University. Both projects are part of the Kansas Department of Transportation’s C-CLIP program, where the state pays for 80 percent of road improvements and local governments pick up the remaining amount.
