City Manager, Mayor say Parkway project in early stages of development

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - City manager Stephen Wade, alongside Topeka mayor Mike Padilla, said that the newly approved elevation parkway project is still in its early stages of development at Tuesday morning’s City of Topeka meeting, but they also say it is about time for the project to move forward.

13 NEWS attended the meeting and asked the leaders about multiple projects in the works -- including the elevation parkway recently added to the city’s budget at the November 15 city council meeting.

City manager Stephen Wade says the plan is still in its preliminary stages, and there is no set groundbreaking date, but both Wade and Mayor Padilla say the time is right for the governing body to start looking into projects like the parkway.

“Time’s change, financial conditions change, and the desire for change comes and goes, and I think right now, as we have seen the enthusiasm for progress in the city of Topeka,” said Padilla. “We are trying to look at these projects that have the potential to make a significant impact on our community, and take them off the shelf and start to look at them closely, and see if they are feasible so we can actually move on them or move on and look at other ideas. I just think that the flavor of the city right now is that we see the progress -- we want to spread that progress around. You know, we have other conversations that are going on about north Topeka over on [Highway] 24 and over on east Topeka, so it is being spread around, and that is the thing I think we always really wanted to try to encourage is hitting every part of the city touched by the process.”

“When we start talking about road projects and whatnot, those things are envisioned up many years in advance, and so this was some work done early on that has been ready to go when the time was right, and we think the time is right,” said Wade.

Wade said all studies and assessments should take a few months, and any updates related to the parkway would probably come closer to March.

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