If you’re among the thousands of drivers that use Commercial Street or Sixth Avenue in downtown Emporia, you may have already figured out something big is underway on one of those two streets.
Milling has started on Commercial just south of 12th, and parking spaces on the west side of Commercial are currently getting milled south to Eighth. Traffic is also compressed on Commercial as well as 12th between Merchant and Mechanic.
The official work zone involves Commercial from 12th south to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks and Sixth Avenue between Mechanic and Neosho. Put another way, this involves a significant stretch of Kansas Highway 99 and US Highway 50 and a lot of downtown businesses. On KVOE’s Morning Show on Monday, City Engineer Jim Ubert asked drivers to be patient with the work now underway.
Ubert says the Commercial Street work will be done “in chunks.”
There will likely be occasional detours from Commercial to Merchant. There could be complete shutdowns of Commercial, but Ubert says those would happen on a limited, temporary basis.
The project is nearly half-funded by the Kansas Department of Transportation as part of the annual City Connecting Link Program. The total cost is almost $620,000, with KDOT funding $300,000 and the city paying for the rest.
Work could well go through October, weather permitting.
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