When: June 8, 2005 at 1 PM

The development of northwest Wichita has grown by leaps and bounds, even since I’ve taken office over 6 years ago. Just last week, we were talking about this growth as we officially dedicated West Kellogg. That growth is really why we are here today.

Because of this continued movement to the northwest area of the City, more people are living here than ever before. And we believe that number will continue to increase. This bridge may seem to be out of the way, but for many this is directly ON the way home for them. Currently the traffic load of this bridge is about 2,200 cars per day and that number is expected to increase to 15,000 cars per day by 2030.

But there was another important reason in making this project happen in District 5 besides that increase in growth and accessibility. I know we are all familiar with the now infamous Halloween flood of Cowskin Creek in 1998. The old bridge is part of why that happened.

13th Street Bridge over Cowskin Creek.

Any time a significant amount of rain came down, it seems the old bridge was undersized for the amount of water that would have to flow through. Then nearly a half-mile of roadway west of the bridge would be flooded. The improvements included tremendous excavating that made it possible to widen the bridge so that it could handle not only more traffic above, but also a greater amount of water below. Now, I can’t say that there will be no more flooding in my district. But what I can say is that this bridge should help relieve issues we have had, and make it so that it won’t flood in this area as often as before.

And talk about an incredible visible difference this bridge is now… before it was two lanes and truly looked like something in the middle of nowhere. I am so proud that this bridge served a better functional purpose, and still brought neighborhood improvements to this area. That would include the lovely landscaping and sidewalks where people can take evening strolls. And simply making this a four-lane road, and increasing the lanes in the bridge not only improve the traffic carrying capacity, but also improve traffic safety.

Men after cutting the ribbon to officially open the 13th Street Bridge.

As with all of our projects of this magnitude, there were many people involved to make it happen. I would like to recognize some of them here today:

• I want to thank the Kansas Department of Transportation for providing a significant amount of money to make this possible. KDOT agreed that this project was important enough to dedicate over 1-million-dollars of Federal grant funds to make this happen.

• I want to thank our King Construction. Their team leader was Don King.

• Thanks to Cook, Flatt and Strobel for everything they did as design consultants. Kenny Blair was their project manager.

• Lastly, I want to thank our Public Works department for their efforts on this project. Chris Carrier, Director of Public Works; Jim Armour, City Engineer, and Gary Janzen, Design Engineer.

And now, let’s officially open this bridge!

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