KU professor believes roundabout right way

By James Carlson

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

Steven Schrock stood this past week at S.W. 21st and Urish Road wearing a hard hat and offering rare support for a project beset by complaints.

The assistant professor in civil engineering at The University of Kansas said the uncompleted roundabout causing so much heartache to nearby businesses is the best route, the closing down of much of the area was the safest option, and the delays are unfortunate but difficult to avoid due to unruly weather.

"I have a hard time finding fault," he said.

As Schrock spoke, Jill Bronaugh hunkered over paperwork in a booth inside The Coffee Break Cafe on the northwest corner of the intersection. The shop's owner, Bronaugh has survived despite having only the north Urish entrance open.

"But I don't know where that breaking point is," she said of staying afloat.

She, like many in the area, has a lot of questions. Did they have to close off S.W. 21st Street? Why has so little work been completed? When is it going to be done? A confluence of events -- changes in plans, breaks in communication and even a tornado -- have led the intersection to where it is today.

Development, then roads

Shawnee County commissioners approved a development for the northwest corner of the intersection in August 2003. Engineers argued that the businesses would induce the infrastructure improvement.

So Doug Bassett, and his brother, Brad, moved forward with plans for a shopping center. The city of Topeka annexed the area in the meantime, and the city council approved money to plan for the intersection in July 2005.

"We all knew the roads were coming, and we were fine with it," Bassett said. "But they had plenty of time to get them in before we got there"

One year later, the Urish Center opened its first business, Tailgators Sports Pub & Grub. Bronaugh opened shop in February 2008 with hope for the project.

"The understanding was that you'd be able to get through one way," she said.

Plans changed

Initial city plans called for work on utilities one road at a time and prior to construction, said Linda Voss, city traffic engineer for Topeka.

The idea in early 2008 was to take two weeks for utility work on S.W. 21st Street, then switch to Urish Road, then reconstruct the roads.

At some point the project's phasing changed in consultation with the utility companies and the general contractor, Schmidtlein Excavating. When construction began May 5, the new plan was to jump right in.

"We just felt it was better to let everyone in there to get everything done instead of opening a road, closing a road, opening a road, closing a road," Voss said.

Bronaugh said the city never consulted with her about easing the construction's drain on her business.

"I think I would have preferred that," she said about the rotation of closed streets.

Voss said she continually updated Bassett on any changes to the plans.

Bassett, for his part, said he doesn't blame the city, though he thinks there was a way to build without choking off the intersection.

He said he knew S.W. 21st would be closed.

"If we were halfway done, nobody would be saying anything," he said. "The problem is we're two months in, and the only thing they've done is move some utility poles."

Lost time

The delay is in part due to Mother Nature. The planned four-week utilities project has now taken 10 weeks after a tornado in Manhattan stole away utility workers.

For owners like Bronaugh, the frustration is that the roads were torn up, then left for weeks without any work while her sales plummeted.

Voss said Friday she was told the utilities were done last week, and then learned Cox Communications still hadn't moved all of its cable wiring. Further exacerbating the problem, Voss said, is that when utility work was delayed, so was construction, and Schmidtlein went to other jobs in the meantime. Schmidtlein is just now coming back and won't have a full load of workers on site for at least a week.

Voss said whichever plans they chose, there was always going to be at least two to three months where the intersection was in the current configuration. With good weather, however, she hopes workers can make up for some lost time.

Other avenues?

Schrock, with KU's civil engineering department, said the roundabout is the best option. For one, it reduces the chance of the T-bone crashes common at right-angle intersections.

Schrock also said maintaining a traffic light costs $3,000 to $3,500 each year. And because of the need for updating the two roads coming into the intersection, there would have been no difference in the construction time.

"You could put a signal in here or a roundabout and you get the same outcome," he said.

Bassett wishes the city would have explored keeping a portion of the road open while working, but Schrock and Voss agree that raises safety concerns.

"That's a big issue both for the worker and the traveling public," Voss said.

She said the work will be completed, fingers crossed, as initially stated by Thanksgiving, and Schrock says the rewards could be worth the wait.