As traffic continues to increase on the US-24 Corridor in Blue Township’s Green Valley area, Pottawatomie County is in the process of developing its first long-range transportation plan to help alleviate the influx with the help of the Kansas Department of Transportation and the Flint Hills Metropolitan Community Organization. The commissioners heard from Transportation Planner Stephanie Watt during their weekly meeting on Monday, March 16, who gave an overview of the current proposed project, an expansion on Marlatt Ave. and Junietta Rd. that would provide an alternate route for drivers.
“A tool that we will use to understand the future needs or capacity issues in the region is developing a travel demand model,” said Watts. “What I showed them was a series of maps that show the future amount of traffic we’re expecting on existing [Highway] 24, and then different scenarios of us modeling the Marlatt-Junietta extension and how many vehicles per day that might pull.”
A conceptual route study has shown that traffic counts on US-24 total as many as 32,000 trips per day, a number that continues to rise with population growth in the region. The model is expected to be completed by the end of March, which the commissioners hope will provide some direction on how to proceed on the issue.
“They can have a better idea on decisions going forward of whether that makes sense, if they want to pursue the next steps, or if we want to go back to the drawing board,” said Watts.
Also at Monday’s meeting was a report from Economic Development Executive Director Jack Allston who made his first county commission appearance since his election to the position in September. Allston gave an update on employment trends in the area, as well as recommendations to continue industrial progress.
“We have a good workforce to draw from both in the blue collar and white collar areas throughout the county,” said Commission Chairman Pat Weixelman of Allston’s presentation. “He gave us a report on what areas we need worked on to be a bigger drawing card in our county for keeping the companies we already have and to expand and bring in new companies to the area.”
Also in the way of economic development was a briefing from County Appraiser Lois Schlegel, who reported that the county added $50 million in appraised values in construction this past year, which amounts to an increased revenue of $200,000.
