Multimedia Reporting (Kuhr-Musser)

Cal Santos, or “Haunted Cal”, is livid about a recent scary surprise. For over a year the house he rents at 1900 19th Street, ‘Haunted Kitchen,’ has hosted art, political and music events, and he is suddenly facing the possibility that those days may be over soon. “I feel like I’m in ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’”, he said, referring to the opening lines of the Douglas Adams novel when the hero wakes up to a bulldozer preparing to demolish his home. “Oh well,” he said, shrugging, “We’re gonna party ‘til they tear it down.”

The 19th and Louisiana intersection is the most dangerous in Lawrence, says David Woosley, Lawrence’s Director of Traffic Engineering. 31 crashes were reported between 2002 and 2004, five involving injuries. This is far above average and is near the critical rate of wrecks. If you imagine that many of these are because of young drivers peeling away from Lawrence High School, think again. Only five of these crashes, Woosley added, involved drivers under the age of 18.

During peak hours, traffic at the intersection backs up all the way to Massachusetts Street, said Terece Gorman, the City Engineer. Most of the accidents are left-turn related, and roundabouts solve this type of traffic problem, Gorman explained. The safest and best solution from an engineering standpoint, she said, was the roundabout proposal.

The City Comission rejected the $1.49 Million roundabout proposal in December because a roundabout would not continue to control rapidly growing Lawrence traffic for more than 15 years. The commissioners believed the plan was too expensive for the short-term remedy it provided.

BG Consultants, a regional engineering group paid $37,000 last month to work on this project, drafted another proposal. This proposal, centered around geometric improvements to the intersection, would cost an estimated $2.24 Million and as much as $3 Million according to a Memorandum by the Public Works Department. However, it would continue to handle traffic for years to come. Gorman doesn’t like it. “Capacity improvements don’t affect the safety issue,” Gorman said.

A public meeting to discuss the proposal gathered about twenty residents together last week. Unfortunately, those the proposal affects weren’t there.

If this proposal is accepted by the City Commisison and put on the capital improvements plan, Haunted Cal might need a new nickname, because the city will be paving over the Haunted Kitchen. Seventeen other properties would be affected, and four homeowners would have to sell their homes to the city. The intersection will also be closed for up to a year.

Todd Giles has owned his home at 1900 Ohio for two years. Giles is pursuing his Ph.D while teaching at KU. He enjoys walking to his office every day. His neighbors across the street, Yoon and Laurenza Soung, bought their home last September. Laurenza gave birth to the Soung’s first child in October.

Neither knew about this proposal, although the city will buy Giles’ home and will take almost $10,000 of the Soung’s land if the City Comission approves it. Yoon and Laurenza swear they never got a postcard about the public meeting. Giles doesn’t think he did either.

However, Giles believes the project is justified. “I could bitch and moan and say it’s stupid, but the city could really use this, and there are only four homes…the proposal certainly seems to make sense.” Somewhat sarcastically, Giles added, “It would have been nice if they would have informed the residents a little more clearly than they did.”

When asked why those who might be asked to remit property were not specifically told about the plan, David Hanby of BG Consultants explained that the draft proposal is “only a project, only drawings on paper, until it’s funded.” He said he saw no reason to tell those people specifically, and thought postcards sent to residents about the public meeting were sufficient.

While the city hasn’t funded a complete plan yet, City Commissioner Mike Amyx says that the intersection ranks as a very high priority because it is such a dangerous intersection. Because there are so few East-West thoroughfares, he said, 19th and Louisiana must be addressed.

As he surveyed the geometric improvements draft proposal for the first time, Amyx said that the Commission will look at this as they do any other project: it’ll go on the capital improvements list while the city looks for ways to fund it. Regarding the eminent domain issue, Amyx said that the city makes ‘a big-time concerted effort’ to avoid eminent domain.

Chuck Soules, the Director of Public Works, agreed. “We’ll try to negotiate anywhere we can,” he said. “We really want to avoid eminent domain.”

Shocked residents will barely have time to double-take as they prepare to comment at a City Commission meeting to discuss this proposal, which will likely happen next month.