The new U.S. 59 Expansion Project that will link Franklin County and Douglas County is costing $166.7 million.

“This is an important, ambitious project on a highway that has long been in need of improvement,”

Transportation Secretary Deb Miller said in a press release on June 16. “This project … will have safety and economic benefits that will last for decades.”

While some students are finding the construction to cause delays, senior Scott Marks said the additional traffic isn’t too bad.

“I commute back and forth every day except for Tuesdays,” Marks said.

Marks spends anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes traveling to Baker University from his home in Lawrence.

“That’s pretty good considering I’m on the far end of town,” he said. “I’ve got to drive a ways before I hit (U.S.) 59.”

Marks said the only time he notices the additional traffic is when traffic is cut down to one lane.

“It’s kind of pain because you’ve got to sit and you’ve got to wait,” he said. “Sometimes I leave a little bit early. There were a couple days that were bad.”

The improvements on the highway began in 2007 in response to a study that was done in 1997 and after a lot of discussion.

“From what I’ve heard from local townies, they’ve been planning this expansion for years and years and years,” Marks said. ” Now it’s finally starting to happen. It’s been weird watching the whole thing happen. All of last year you could see all of the stuff happening off the side of the highway, but it’s just this semester that they actually started doing some actual roadwork on the road.”

The construction on U.S. 59 is a two-phase project.

Phase I was a 7.6 mile, four-lane freeway from the Baldwin City Junction into Ottawa.

The second phase, which began in 2008, is an 11.1 mile freeway and won’t be completed until late 2012.

“Improvements of this scale are expensive and can’t be done without the buy-in of citizens and business leaders and the commitment of political leaders,” Miller said. “That broad support has allowed Kansas to build projects such as the U.S. 59 expansion and develop one of the best highway systems in the nation.”

While the changes in Douglas county into Lawrence are expensive, the project will include 23 bridges, 2.3 million cubic yards of rock excavation and 3.2 million cubic yards of dirt excavation. The total cost for the project in Douglas County is $103.2 million.

Other roadwork is being done east of Baldwin City on U.S. 56 highway.

Director of the Physical Plant Gary Walbridge sent an e-mail to the Baker community on Sept. 2 warning students about the resurfacing project on U.S. 56 highway into Johnson County.

“This started (Sept. 2) and there is a ‘follow me’ truck,” Walbridge said in the e-mail. “Expect delays.”