If you drive on I-35 on the Kansas side, you may have noticed the new ramp meters.
Crews installed six new meters, but won't turn them on until September. KC Scout and KDOT hope the meters will help to ease some of the stress of merging during the morning and evening rush.
"When you have 20 vehicles trying to merge at the same time on an interstate that is full you have a lot of erratic driving and people cutting each other off," said Mark Sommerhauser, ITS Project Manager for KC Scout. "We're trying to make people pause for a few seconds to create those gaps and spaces."
When the ramp meters are turned on, you'll see a yellow beacon flashing at the top of the ramp. That should signal you to slow down and prepare to stop. On the ramp there will be another signal with a green and red light.
"If its red, you stop for a second or two, it'll turn to green and release you," said Sommerhauser.
Only a couple vehicles are allowed to go at one time.
"It's not going to solve all of the congestion issues," he said. "You still have the narrowing of lanes in areas. There are bottlenecks. That costs hundreds of millions of dollars to fix. We're looking to do something low-cost for a few hundred thousand dollars to at least make it a little safer in the short term until more funding might be found for a longer term solution."
New I-35 ramp meter locations:
- 7th Street Trafficway to NB and SB I-35
- Southwest Boulevard to SB I-35
- 18th Street to SB I-35
- 67th Street to SB I-35
- Johnson Drive to NB I-35
"There are some ramps that are so busy and so compressed that we can't put meters on there," said Sommerhauser. "Shawnee Mission Parkway, Johnson Drive (to SB I-35), 87th St... Some of those are just so busy that we can't do those."
Kansas City already has 17 ramp meters across the metro area. There are 15 along I-435 and two on US-69 at 135th Street in Overland Park. A year-long evaluation of those on I-435 showed a decrease in accidents by 64 percent.
