Once toll lanes and other improvements are added, work on U.S. Highway 69 through Overland Park, Kan. is anticipated to be completed later this year.
Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) officials said they are focused on finishing the 69Express project's last major milestones, which includes replacing bridges over Interstate 435 and rebuilding an interchange at 167th Street.
“Most of the work in 2025 is going to be down at the two ends [of the project],” said Steve Rockers, 69Express project director, in a statement.
Upcoming work this spring includes 167th Street under and near U.S. Highway 69, as well as the ramps from the highway to the street. The areas will close for about 180 days, giving crews time to reconstruct it and build out the interchange by adding ramps to the south side.
Besides rebuilding U.S. Highway 69 bridges over I-435, KDOT is also planning to rebuild other bridges on the northern end of the project this year, Rockers said.
Throughout that work, there may be some daily lane closures and periodic ramp closures, said Matt Bechtel, a traffic coordinator for the project. Specific dates for those impacts are unclear at this point, but Bechtel predicted they will likely occur in late spring and early summer.
With the project on track to be substantially completed this year Rockers said that also means the express toll lanes — the main feature of the whole project — will be finished soon.
That portion of the project, which has been happening alongside interchange upgrades and other improvements over the past few years, will add express toll lanes onto about six miles of U.S. Highway 69 between 103rd and 151st Streets.
The toll fee will only apply to drivers in the dedicated express lanes, which will be on the left of existing lanes going both north and south on U.S. Highway 69. Fees will be set based on time of day, amount of traffic and how long a driver stays in the toll lane.
The express toll lanes are expected to come online by the end of the year.
Source: Johnson County Post, Ground.news
