K-7 / Johnson Drive Interchange Receives Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award from the Eastern Chapter of KSPE



A unique interchange at Kansas Highway 7 and Johnson Drive in Shawnee, Kansas, has been honored by the Eastern Chapter of KSPE with the Chapter’s Outstanding Engineering Achievement award for 2011. Partners in the project include the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT), the City of Shawnee, Kansas, and GBA. 

The project, which is on schedule for completion in November of this year, will replace a signalized intersection on K-7 at Johnson Drive/55th Street by constructing a modified single-point urban interchange with a large, multi-lane roundabout where ramps intersect Johnson Drive. The project will raise the profile of K-7 over Johnson Drive and will improve K-7 to interstate standards by providing a four-lane divided freeway. Provisions have also been included to add an additional lane in each direction as traffic volumes warrant. Two additional multi-lane roundabouts are being built on Johnson Drive on either side of K-7. 

Accepting the Outstanding Engineering Achievement award are (from left) Howard Lubliner, P.E., project manager, KDOT; Todd Jones, P.E., project manager, GBA; and Doug Wesselschmidt, P.E., Director of Development Services/City Engineer, City of Shawnee.





According to GBA Project Manager Todd Jones, P.E., development along the K-7 corridor prompted the improvements. "The interchange will replace a potentially dangerous signalized intersection that accommodated about 30,000 vehicles each day," Jones said. "During peak traffic, left-turn lane queues backed onto through lanes of K-7, creating safety concerns." When the project is completed, the intersection will handle the projected traffic volume for 2040.

Winners of Chapter awards will be considered for awards at the state level, which will be presented at the KSPE Annual Conference Awards Luncheon Thursday, June 23rd at the Hyatt in Wichita. 

New Interchange at Strother Road and I-470 in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, Receives 2011 Capstone Award for Infrastructure from the Kansas City Business Journal; GBA Part of Winning Project Team

An interchange at Strother Road and Interstate-470 in Lee’s Summit has been named a winner of a Capstone Award in the Infrastructure category by the Kansas City Business Journal. Now in its sixth year, the Capstone Award program honors outstanding real estate development projects and transactions throughout the Kansas City area. According to the Business Journal, a panel of judges reviewed the applications, considering visual aesthetics, new technological concepts, and a project’s relevance to the community. The goal of the awards program is to look beyond dollar figures and square footages and consider how these projects are shaping the community.

Construction of an interchange at Strother Road was a long-time goal, a key component in the City of Lee’s Summit Master Plan as well as in earlier traffic and market studies. An interchange and enhanced local road system was expected to encourage development along the corridor, ultimately serving some six million square feet of office space, 2.5 million square feet of industrial space, and about 2,400 residential units. Based on anticipated land uses, more than 24,000 employees would ultimately be attracted to planned developments within the vicinity of the project daily.

GBA is part of the team that made the Strother Road interchange project a reality, providing traffic engineering needed to complete the Purpose and Need, Location Study, and Environmental Assessment required by MoDOT and the federal NEPA process. GBA also prepared construction plans for about 2.5 miles of local roadways built in conjunction with the new interchange. And because of the close proximity of Jackson County’s Lake Jacomo to the roadway network, extensive hydraulic and drainage studies were completed as well. GBA’s involvement also included input on lane configuration and traffic control strategies for the interchange and designs for traffic signalization, street lighting, pavement marking, permanent signing, and traffic control during construction.