KSHB 41 reporter Elyse Schoenig covers Johnson County. She also focuses on issues surrounding the cost of health care, saving for retirement and personal debt. Share your story idea with Elyse.
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The City of Olathe is moving forward with nearly $700,000 in federal safety infrastructure funding to make some of its streets safer.
The city of Olathe has been studying ways to improve its streets and already greenlighted the council-approved Safety Action Plan (SAP). This grant will help fund the majority of the city’s SAP.
Olathe’s transportation manager Andrew Robertson said they’ll be looking at speed limits, safety improvements, road audits and more.The work will start at the end of 2026 and take about three years.
“All the city streets will be looked at for safety improvements,” Robertson said.“Ultimately, this project focuses on just the priorities established in the Safety Action Plan as adopted by council last year.”
U.S. Representative Sharice Davids said Olathe needed this grant.
“Olathe is growing,” Davids said. “There's a lot of great stuff happening out here, and they want to make sure that they're ready for when that growth continues.”
The grant will target high-priority areas, which include parts of Highway 56, Kansas Highway7 and projects along Santa Fe Street.
The choice of those roadways was based on extensive community engagement that generated over 140 online survey responses, 600 interactive map comments, and input from more than 300 community members during in-person events.
Some of those responses indicated parts of Dennis Avenue near Old Highway 56 and Pflumm Road near 137th and 138th Streets as spots with high community concern.
“It’s a pretty fast intersection over there,” Tom Balsbaugh, who lives right next to Pflumm Road, said.
Balsbaugh said they want something in place to slow traffic there.
“I'd say at least four times when we're actually sitting at dinner eating, we heard the crashes, so we've gone out there before and made sure everyone is okay,” he said.
Sondra Kirkpatrick said she sees crashes too often outside her business on Dennis Avenue, too.
“My husband was at the corner of Highway56 and Lone Elm, he was turning right, got rear ended by the trash truck,” she said.“We've had three car accidents probably in the last two months. Go ahead and look at maybe more. Those are just the ones that we were here to witness.”
“It sounds like we're getting to a point where things are moving, and that's being worked out,”Tom Balsbaugh said. “So, we're happy about that.”
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