By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The City of Hutchinson intends to try again to get federal help with a project to deal with issues on the Woodie Seat Freeway. The subject was initially brought up by City Manager Jeff Cantrell.
"It's probably appropriate that we would have a discussion to see if the governing body would support another application for that project," Cantrell said. "If we decided not to do that, because I think we might have a pretty good feel for what the community would and wouldn't support, we would then have to fund it some other way. It would certainly cost more for the city to do it in an alternate fashion."
There is no guarantee the city will get the grant. They've already lost out on it multiple times. Council member Jon Daveline strongly believes the city needs the federal match to get the project done.
"I suspect if you would do a public opinion on what our priority arterial projects would be, I believe the Woodie Seat Freeway would be at the top of that list," Daveline said. "It's a main arterial gateway corridor into our community. It is in bad disrepair and it's time that we put our attention to it. As I have reviewed over the years the various federal programs, I can't think of a better opportunity to leverage federal tax dollars for this multi-million dollar project. Our budgets are tight enough anyway and we really, really, really need to take advantage of this next opportunity to resubmit our application."
The people in the Southwest Bricktown neighborhood don't want roundabouts or to have Avenue B closed, but just repairing the bridges without the federal dollars would cost the city millions of dollars more, but the studies haven't been done to figure out exactly how much.
"I have just a really high-level estimate of $5 to $7 million," said Jeff Peterson Director of Engineering. "We'd have to get some engineering done, a study on the existing bridges to see if they're going to be replacement or if they're going to be repairs. Avenue B is probably the one that most needs work right now, but Avenue C and Avenue A bridges are also the same vintage, like 1959 is when they were built."
Council member Sara Bagwell would like to see if they can get the grant and if so, if the city can commit to helping the neighborhood work with the changes that would come.
"Maybe there's some other things that that community needs," Bagwell said. "We can talk about all of it. What our needs are for the roundabout, what their needs are for their community and see if we can't have some sort of compromise between the two."
The concern is that if opposition to the project from the neighborhood is vocal enough, then those who would be making the federal decisions would choose to pass on the project and award the money to someone else and then the city might have to raise taxes to make up the difference, because the bridges are not going to last much longer.
At this point, the council has voted to approve initial work on the grant application, but the issue will also be on the next meeting's agenda in April so the public can come weigh in with their thoughts.