Olathe officials remain opposed to building an interchange at K-10 and Lone Elm Road. But with the project moving forward regardless, the city is accepting up to $18.7 million from the Kansas Department of Transportation to make it safer.
The Olathe City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to accept the state funding which will go toward creating a bypass route for trucks traveling between K-10 and College Boulevard. The route is intended to keep semitrucks off Lone Elm Road near three Olathe schools.
In a letter to the state transportation department sent in December of 2024, the city council asked KDOT to keep trucks out of school zones and fully fund improvements needed to accommodate the additional traffic.
Even with the added bypass — which will be funded entirely by KDOT, the interchange doesn’t have the city council’s support.
“ So we can think that this interchange is a dumb idea, is a waste of money, and still vote yes to get KDOT’s money to mitigate the risks that we perceive from this dumb idea?” Councilmember Matthew Schoonover asked during Tuesday’s meeting.
What the bypass will do
The proposed two-lane road would connect the future interchange to College Boulevard without directing trucks south on Lone Elm Road through the school zones — a concern that Olathe city councilmembers have previously brought up.
Two miles west of the Olathe schools is an Aldi distribution center at the corner of K-10 and K-7 highways, and large trucks regularly travel through the area. The bypass will give trucks an alternate route.
Plans for the bypass also call for turn lanes, sidewalks, streetlights and stormwater infrastructure.
The state has agreed to cover expenses up to $18.7 million, which is the city’s estimate for the project.
The city council also unanimously approved a contract of up to $1.04 million with HNTB, a Kansas City-based architecture and infrastructure design firm, to develop the preliminary plans and identify the land needed for the road.
About the project
The proposed interchange would connect North Lone Elm Road in Lenexa and South Lone Elm Road in Olathe. It will also turn Lone Elm into a four-lane divided roadway, with two lanes being added as right-of-ways off K-10.
Councilmembers and residents in both cities have previously requested that instead of an interchange, KDOT construct an overpass that would allow traffic on Lone Elm to cross over K-10 without drivers on K-10 being able to get on and off the highway.
Engineers from the state transportation department previously explained that they found the interchange would be the best way to mitigate traffic on K-10, calling it a “pressure relief valve.”
“There’s a lot of growth happening in the area and traffic volumes continue to grow,” Project Manager Steven Cross told the Olathe City Council last year. “And so by adding on more capacity, it accommodates the growth that’s happening.”
The interchange is just one part of a larger $1.2 billion project to expand K-10’s capacity along a 16.5-mile stretch in Johnson County that passes through De Soto, Lenexa and Olathe.
Safety concerns
Three schools in Olathe — Olathe Northwest High School, Prairie Trail Middle School and Meadow Lane Elementary — are all within roughly one mile of where the interchange would be, south of K-10 along South Lone Elm Road.
On the Lenexa side, Manchester Park Elementary sits less than 2 miles away.
With the interchange, cars exiting K-10 would merge onto Lone Elm Road in an area frequently used by pedestrians, including children walking to and from school.
Olathe city councilmembers voiced their concerns and opposition to the project at a meeting last October.
At the meeting, a representative from KDOT mentioned that the project could lead to economic development and traffic improvements for Lenexa.
“So Lenexa’s economic development trumps Olathe’s safety concerns is what I’m hearing,” Schoonover said at the time.
In late June, the city of Lenexa announced it received a $16 million Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (or BUILD) discretionary grant for the Lone Elm interchange project.
The grant is awarded to surface transportation infrastructure projects with “significant local or regional impact,” according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The project is expected to cost about $43 million overall.
“The BUILD grant brings us closer to delivering an interchange that will improve safety, create more direct access for our students who attend school in the Olathe School District, and support economic development for decades to come,” Lenexa Mayor Julie Sayers said in a press release announcing the grant.
“For many years the City of Olathe has not viewed the addition of an interchange at K-10 and Lone Elm as beneficial,” Olathe Mayor Pro Tem and Councilmember Dean Vakas told the Post. “However, Lenexa successfully secured significant Federal funding and KDOT decided to proceed.”
Lenexa has also bookmarked $8 million from its 2026-2030 Capital Improvement Program to go towards the project.
Olathe will not be contributing any funds.
Looking ahead
Construction on the interchange is set to begin in 2027 and be completed by 2030. The city will begin land acquisition and utility relocation for the bypass route in 2027. Construction is scheduled to begin and end in 2028.
