Prairie Village Improves 5 Sites with Annual Paving Program

Every year, the City of Prairie Village reinvests in their infrastructure to improve quality of life for residents. Their annual paving program is one way they continue to improve roadways and connectivity for the area. It focuses solely on deteriorating streets, curb and gutter, and sidewalks. To help their entire community, they choose updates across the city. In 2021, we designed five different streets as part of this initiative.

To determine which sites will be selected, the city keeps a running list of the condition of their streets and the infrastructure around them. They note which streets should be fully replaced versus repaired with mill and overlay, as well as needed concrete spot repairs for sidewalks and curb and gutter. They also consider where sidewalks should be added for streets that don’t already having existing sidewalks.

For 2021, the city used a new approach. They handled spot repairs in-house and leveraged our design team for larger scale efforts, like the full street reconstruction and additions of new sidewalk. Below, you’ll find descriptions of each site where we worked.

El Monte Street from 91st Street to 92nd Terrace
El Monte Street needed storm sewer improvements, concrete spot repairs, and a mill and overlay. Although stormwater repairs are not typically included in the paving program, the city wanted to reduce the impact to residents by making all changes concurrently. Our design plans moved the main trunk line of the existing storm sewer system from behind the curb to along the center of the west lane under the street and the existing pipes were flow-filled in place, requiring no excavation within the right-of-way. This placement and method of flow-fill was selected, because it allowed us to avoid many utility conflicts and reduce the impact to residents’ properties. Full depth pavement replacement was needed only where the stormwater repairs were made. The remainder of the street will be improved using mill and overlay, while the existing curb and gutter, as well as the sidewalk, will be spot repaired. This project is currently under construction.

Windsor Street, Cherokee Drive to 75th Street
Much like El Monte, Windsor Street also required storm repairs, along with concrete spot repairs and a mill and overlay of the street. Here, there were a number of utility conflicts. Due to the fast-paced nature of these projects, we work closely with the utility representatives to stay ahead of the city’s contractor’s needs. This project has yet to be constructed, but is currently in preliminary design and is scheduled to be built in 2022.

76th Street, Mission Road to Pawnee
76th Street is one of many Prairie Village streets that does not have any sidewalk on either side. In these cases, the city distributes a survey to residents to see if they would like to add sidewalks to the area. The affected residents then can vote to determine whether or not they’d like to include them. Here, they voted to have them added.

Sidewalks were designed from Mission to Mohawk Drive on the north side and from Mohawk to Pawnee on the south side of the street. To improve accessibility, we also added ADA ramps to both sides. This project has yet to be constructed but will be completed before the end of the 2021 construction season.

82nd Street from Roe to Somerset Drive
For the 2021 Paving Program, this was the only complete street reconstruction. Improving drainage was an area of focus for our team. We did this by rebuilding the curb line and putting in a dry valley gutter to remove sitting water from the intersection at Granada, as well as adding underdrain to help with seepage water behind the curb within the right-of-way. In addition, we worked to increase safety by adding speed humps and associated pavement markings. The existing sidewalk on the south side was redesigned to meet the proper curb type for the city’s new standards when sidewalk is at the back curb, like it was here. This site will begin construction in the next couple of weeks when all utilities have been relocated.

Birch Street, Between 73rd Street and Tomahawk
Unlike the other four projects, this project site was a part of the concrete repair program, but because it needed additional sidewalk to complete the pedestrian connectivity, the city elected to have us do the design.