Ninth Street from Iowa to Tennessee will undergo construction starting June 9 and tentatively ending August 7. The project includes replacing curbs and gutters, removing existing pavement, placing new asphalt and widening the street at the Avalon Road intersection to include a left turn lane.

The first part of the project will affect Ninth Street from Iowa to Emery. Traffic in this area will be reduced to one lane and only local traffic will be allowed in some spots. Roger Johnson, CEO of RD Johnson Excavating Co. Inc., said this section was scheduled to be finished by the first week of July. Johnson said that the project had a very tight time frame and that the weather would be a determining factor for a timely completion.

This will be the first project to use revenue from the sales tax approved last November and the tax will account for 43 percent of the funding. Other sources for funding include the general fund, gas tax funds, sales tax reserve and capital improvement reserve accounts.

Tyler Danaver, Wichita junior, lives along Ninth Street and uses Avalon Road when he needs to park on the street at home.

Danaver said the amount of potholes caused problems when trying to pull on Avalon Road from Ninth Street. He said that he had not seen an accident, but that he had heard plenty of screeching tires and that the added left turn lane would help ease traffic congestion.

“I think it will be nice because the road really backs up if you have a left turner,” Danaver said. “People park along the street there so there’s not really a lot of room to get around and if it’s in a busy traffic time of the day, for some reason three o’clock is, you can sit for 15 minutes trying to get out.”

Jeff Goodman, Lawrence resident, lives on West 15th Terrace near where the first section of construction will take place. Goodman agreed the new turn lane would help traffic along Ninth Street.

“I notice there are a lot of people who are coming down the hill who aren’t paying attention,” Goodman said. “I think in the long run it’s a pretty good idea. I used to live across the street when I was going to KU back in the late ’90s and I always wondered why don’t they widen Ninth Street, but it would be quite a project.”

Goodman said that because of the construction in front of Avalon Road he would find another way to get to work other than his car.

“For those couple days that they’re actually going to work out here, I can ride my bike to work,” he said.

Goodman said that adding bike lanes along Ninth Street would be a worthwhile project, but that the city commission had not yet decided whether to include them in construction plans. He said that he tended to avoid major streets while biking because he considered them more dangerous.

Michael Almon, local bicycle advocate, said the city planned to put 11 bicycle lanes around town, including Ninth Street, in 1999.

“They’ve pretty much done all the rest of them,” Almon said. “But they haven’t done Ninth Street. They just keep putting it off.”

Almon said it was important to have bicycle lanes because there were so many bicycle accidents along Ninth Street.

“The traffic accident data for the city of Lawrence showed the highest rate of bicycle-automobile accidents in the section of Ninth Street between Mississippi and downtown,” Almon said. “Highest accident rate for bicycles anywhere in Lawrence.”

Almon said there had been overwhelming support for putting bike lanes along Ninth Street from merchants along the street and from students. More than 400 people signed a petition supporting adding bike lanes.

In order to put bicycle lanes in, Almon suggests removing parking along the south side of Ninth Street to provide space for bike lanes on both sides of the street. Almon said these spots were hardly ever used because the businesses along the south side of Ninth Street didn’t require any additional parking beyond their parking lots. Parking would still be available along the north side of the street for merchants and other establishments needing additional parking.

Mark Thiel, assistant public works director, said the Department of Public Works would review the feasibility of placing bike lanes along Ninth Street and would present its findings to the city commission in early July.

— — Edited by Ross Stewart