Group eyes hiring consulting firm for U.S. 50 push

In the fall, the new Kansas transportation plan will be written, and Harvey County wants to make sure when that happens improvements to U.S. Highway 50 will be on the 10-year list.

"I have watched this process for decades," Newton city manager Randy Riggs said at Wednesday’s Harvey County Council of Governments meeting. “The communities who are not organized watch the dust blow down their streets while construction goes on elsewhere.”

The council of governments, made up of an elected official and an administrator from each city in the county in addition to a county administrator and commissioner, discussed a plan to get organized.

If cities agree to hire a consulting firm, with a price tag of about $20,000, when presentations are made about possible transportation projects an organized case — based on long-term economic benefits to the county — will be made.

The study would take 60 days, with results presented in September.

Harvey County also will be approaching Reno County to seek a partnership. The hope is U.S. 50 could become a four-lane highway throughout the county. Newton also is lobbying for improvements to the Anderson and Meridian streets interchanges.

Governmental bodies in the county will be asked by the Harvey County Economic Development Council to fund the study based on their current level of funding given to the EDC.

“We need to do this,” said county commissioner Marge Roberson. “I have sat through too many meetings about this issue where people have nodded their heads, but we still don’t have specific information.”

Harvey County will not be alone in asking the state for improvements to the highway — every county between Harvey County and the Colorado state line is part of a work group trying to come up with a plan for improvements to the highway.

Harvey County began sending a representative, Willis Heck, to those meetings last year.