High number of crashes where six died on stretch of K-10 near Lawrence, data shows
The stretch of Kansas 10 where six people were killed after a Ford Fusion caught fire in a head on crash last month has seen more than double the crashes in the past three years as a comparable stretch of road that was expanded to four lanes in 2016.
29-year-old Anico Kirk, her three children 11-year-old Yamel, 9-year-old Umariell and 4-year-old Nay’Layah, Kirk’s brother Maurice Ross, 27, and family friend Felecia Harvey, 49, were killed while driving from Florida to Topeka on June 18, the Lawrence Journal World reported.
Around 6:40 p.m. the family crashed at mile marker 385 of U.S. Highway 40, just west of the interchange with U.S. 59, or Iowa Street, said Douglas County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Jenn Hethcoat in an email to The Star. U.S. 40 and K-10 run concurrently west of Iowa Street.
That two-lane stretch of K-10 west of Interstate 70 to U.S. 59 sees substantially more crashes than the four lane stretch of road east of U.S. 59 to 23rd Street, according to data provided to The Star by the Kansas Department of Transportation last week.
From 2017 to 2019 the two lane stretch of highway had 290 accidents including two fatal crashes and 52 injury crashes. The four lane part of the road, had 121 accidents with no fatal crashes and seven injury crashes.
Burt Morey, the Deputy Secretary of Transportation and State Transportation Engineer, said the two lane part of the highway could be safer.
After construction in 2016 expanded the east side of the highway to four lanes, Morey said, traffic increased dramatically.
“I don’t know that I can tell you why there are more crashes other than there’s simply more traffic on a two lane stretch of road,” Morey said.
KDOT, Morey said, has tried to improve safety on the highway in recent years and has more plans this summer.
Morey said KDOT has been prioritizing the areas on K-10 in most need of improvements.
The agency has already removed access to the intersection at Kasold Drive and, Morey said, plans to make changes to improve the safety of the intersection at Wakarusa Drive. Rumble strip was installed in the center lane, Morey said, to help avoid head to head collisions.
This summer, Morey said, the department plans to install a queuing system to provide drivers traveling Westbound advance warning of the traffic situation on the two lane stretch of road. The agency’s temporary system, he said, was vandalized in March and was not replaced in anticipation of the new project.
A project to expand the west side stretch of the highway to four lanes is among 40 projects on the state’s development pipeline. These projects, Morey said, are in the preliminary engineering phase and will be prioritized across the state in efforts to find funding sources.
“We have almost unlimited needs across the state, we have limited resources so we prioritize,” Morey said. “Eventually we will end up with more capacity on this road. We’re just hitting the places where we have the most dichotomy for our funds.”
