OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- We'll start with some good news for Johnson County drivers.
By Monday, Nov. 6, all lanes of 435 between Quivira and Metcalf will be back open in the original lanes.
This weekend, KDOT crews will be repainting the lane lines on the westbound lanes. When they are finished, traffic will be in its "winter traffic pattern."
KDOT will be closing all but one lane of westbound 435 overnight Friday and Saturday from 8 p.m. to 10 a.m. the following mornings.
"The project has been going very well so far," said Joshua Welge, a KDOT Metro Engineer. "The contract area was required to basically be completed with this phase for the winter shutdown on November 17, so we're ahead of that schedule."
I-435 construction to return in 2018
The bad news is this isn't the end of KDOT's 435 reconstruction project. Drivers will once again start seeing lane closures through the same area starting on March 5, 2018. This time, the focus will be on the westbound lanes.
"So again there will be two contraflow lanes that are carrying traffic in the westbound direction on the eastbound side while we split traffic around in order to reconfigure and reconstruct all of the westbound lanes," said Welge.
The hope is that after this project is complete (scheduled for November 2018) the new pavement will last at least 25 years, if not longer.
"We hope for 40 or 50 years," said Welge. "Twenty-five is kind of the minimum precedent we set before we have to do any maintenance action."
This span of I-435 is used by 140,000 vehicles every day. While the section under construction is only 2 miles long, Welge said the actual amount of work taking place is equivalent to paving more than 20 lane miles of highway.
"It is a significant project," he said. "There's over 20 miles of temporary concrete barrier that has to be placed or moved during the project and over 175 miles of temporary pavement markings that get placed at different phases. So it's a significant amount of work."
Construction starting on the other side of the state line
Next year, while construction is taking place on the Kansas side of 435, MoDOT is set to kick off its 435 project as well. Exact plans haven't been released yet, but MoDOT said the work will be done between State Line and Grandview Road.
"We've been in conversation with them about the unique project," said Welge. "The two projects are separated enough that there really won't be any overlapping impacts in terms of traffic control. There will be congestion issues with one work zone that kind of spills into the other."
MoDOT told 41 Action News in an interview back in April bridge repair is what sparked the I-435 project. The transportation team also wants to help improve merging onto the interstate.
MoDOT construction is slated to begin in summer 2018 and last through 2020.
