The work on 24th Street will pass in front of Jefferson Elementary School. According to Unified School District 428 officials, there will be special considerations for students. These include:
• The Great Bend Police Department will be present before and after school while the construction crew is working by Jefferson School.
• No vehicle parking on 24th Street until the construction crew has cleared the area.
• Parents may be asked to take a different route when approaching or leaving the school zone.
• There is a strong possibility that the students will be crossing 24th Street at a place other than the stop light. The GBPD will help facilitate the crossing of 24th Street for the students since it might be in a different location.
• Parents are urged to continue to adhere to the other already set parking rules (no parking on the west side of building or east side of the road.
The work on Morton will impact Great Bend High School, but district officials said there were no special considerations planned for GBHS.
For more information about street work near the schools, call the GBPD at 620-793-4120, Jefferson at 620-793-1502 or GBHS at 620-793-1521. One can also call the district office at 620-793-1500.
Earlier this month, the Great Bend City Council paved the way for $1.21 million in improvements to about 90 blocks of city streets. That work begins this coming week, City Administrator Howard Partington said.
The first portion, covering about 22 blocks, will include:
• Monday – Morton Street from 19th to 21st, involving a milling of the old concrete, and 24th from Washington to Harrison, involving a one-inch milling that may create an uneven driving surface.
• Tuesday – Washington from 12th to 24th involving a one-inch asphalt milling.
The streets will be open to traffic, but area residents will be asked not to park on the affected streets during the repairs, Partington said.
In all these cases, once the milling is done, a paving layer will be applied, said Kip Spray of Venture Corporation, the Great Bend firm handling the project. This first phase should be done by the end of the week or the first part of the following week.
Spray said his crews will then leave town for a week and a half to tackle other projects. Once they are back, they will resume.
All 90 blocks, at various levels of deterioration in all for corners of the city, are scheduled to be finished by the end of the year, weather permitting, Spray said.
Most of the funding for these improvements will come from money set aside from the city’s half- and quarter-cent sales taxes.
Of the half-cent tax, only a portion targets streets, but the quarter-cent tax was implemented strictly for these projects, Partington said. The city also has other reserve accounts that can be used for streets, but the use of sales tax money keeps these from having to be tapped as much.
This is in addition to the $400,000-plus improvements to the 281 bypass. By using a formula of sales tax, city reserves and Kansas Department of Transportation funds, all of the work can be done and leave money left over, Partington said.
weather permitting
