Green Hills Road is about done and I took some liberty and drove through the job tonight since I've got a pass. The project is a classic partnership project. KCMO put in roughly $1M of bond and sales taxes for the design and property acquisition, Platte County obtained a $2M federal grant and used that plus something like $2.3M of its 3/8th cent road and bridge sales tax to pay for the construction and now we've got a complete street where people don't have to walk or bike in the road with cars driving by at 40+mph in ten foot lanes.
This is looking south from NW 78th Street where the project started.
My 11 year old commented that it was really nice and had a big wide sidewalk which is on the east side of the street and is ten feet wide for bikes and pedestrians. This is looking south towards the entrance to Silverbrooke and the Russell Jones Education Center.
The next shot is looking north from NW 76th Street and the school entrance.
The next picture is looking south from the eastern entrance to Lake Waukomis towards Platte Brooke Drive. The project included an extension of the median built in the previous phase. The purpose of this was to provide some traffic calming and beautification. Back in 2005 KCMO did a study and the 100+ people that showed up to the public meetings were pretty adamant that they liked the rural and treed feel of the existing road even though it had a high number of accidents and fatalities. People also came unglued at the idea of a four lane road so the hybrid two and three lane concept was chosen. I hope those that were around then realized their input mattered.
The southern portion of the project included milling and overlaying the existing pavement. The first time we drove through here with the kids after the contractor milled off the top 2" of the road, my 18yo commented that "this road is so horrible, it's like Lightning McQueen built it."
The project included putting sod down and in case you ever wondered how a landscaper puts down sod, it comes in a roll and they use a little skid loader contraption to unroll it. For those of you not familiar with the area, the nice wall was built by Jon and Dave Barth as part of the Silverbrooke subdivision and the design of the street accommodated it and provides some aesthetic enhancement to the corridor.
Sod also has to be watered and it's not that complicated to do. All it takes is a big tank, a super soaker on a truck, and some dudes.
The next phase hasn't been bid so enjoy the summer of Green Hills before that next phase starts. You can also read about the history of the corridor and area from an old post here. It's also the northern entrance into Miltonwood, a once charming roaring 20's hamlet.