The Kellogg and Rock Road interchange project will begin opening to traffic over a three day period this week. On Wednesday, Nov. 4, eastbound traffic will be routed onto the freeway after the morning rush. After the morning rush on Friday, Nov.6, westbound traffic will be shifted onto the freeway beginning at Cypress. This will eliminate two signals for mainline Kellogg traffic, at Armour and at Rock Road.
Traffic will be limited to two of the three lanes of the freeway until both ends of the construction are complete later in the year.
All north-south through lanes and all turn movements for Rock Road traffic will be opened during the week of November 9; through lanes and turn movements for Armour/Towne East Mall Drive open the week of Nov. 16.
“Our goal was to have all movements available by the day after Thanksgiving, for shoppers who want to visit the area. We are very pleased to deliver this important project to the citizens of Wichita on time”, said Michael Jacobs, Special Projects Engineer. “For through traffic, the travel time through the Rock Road intersection area has been reduced from over 10 minutes in 2006 to less than 2 minutes.”
In addition to reducing travel time, the project will reduce the amount of fuel used by motorists, and improve air quality in the area.
The freeway construction phase of the Kellogg at Rock Road upgrade began in February 2007 and is scheduled for final completion in the spring of 2010. Wildcat Construction is the prime contractor for this $48 million phase. This construction phase is the last of 10 construction phases in the Rock Road area. Construction was broken into phases due to the time required for right of way acquisition, to shorten the time to final completion. The first construction phase at Kellogg and Rock Road was construction of drainage structures, which began in 2003.
The total investment to convert Kellogg from an arterial street to a freeway from Governor to Cypress is $155 million. The City of Wichita has funded this investment through its portion of the one-percent, countywide sales tax. This section of the Kellogg corridor will provide a $450 million impact to the local economy when it is opened.
In addition to the economic impact after construction and the travel efficiencies this project will produce, the project employed 100 people during construction and more than 222 companies provided products and services.
Both the City of Wichita and the City of Andover have begun conceptual design to continue the freeway east through Andover.
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