| US 54 | |||
| Get started | liberal | ||
| End | Fort Scott | ||
| Length | 369 mi | ||
| Length | 594 km | ||
|
|||
According to Biotionary, US 54 is a US Highway in the US state of Kansas. The road forms an east-west route in the south and east of the state and is 594 kilometers long. Part of the route around Wichita has been developed as a motorway.
Travel directions
US 54 at Fort Scott.
In flat farmland, US 54 enters the state of Kansas from Oklahoma at the village of Liberal. Here you almost immediately cross the US 83, the road from Perryton to Garden City. The road then continues on long straights to the northeast. At Plains US 160 merges from Ulysses, which merges again at Meade 20 kilometers further towards Medicine Lodge. The landscape here is extremely monotonous and almost completely flat. At the village of Minneola you cross US 283, the road from Sayre to Dodge City, the largest town in western Kansas. From Mullinville, US 400 merges from Dodge City. Both roads will be double numbered for the time being. At Greensburg, a town that was razed to the ground by an EF5 tornado in 2007, US 183 crosses the road from Sitka to Hays. From time to time one crosses various main roads that actually only lead from villages to other villages, the distances are very large here. At Pratt you cross US 281, which runs from Medicine Lodge to Great Bend.
From the town of Kingman, the US 54 becomes a highway with 2×2 lanes, which is more than 40 kilometers long. Just west of Wichita, the highway section is temporarily interrupted by a number of at -grade intersections, but in Wichita the road is a freeway. The airport crosses Interstate 235, the city’s western ring road. The highway runs directly past the center and has 2×3 lanes here. A turbine interchange crosses Interstate 135, the state’s westernmost north-south Interstate. After this, the highway runs through the eastern residential areas of Wichita and runs partly parallel to Interstate 35and has two separate connections to it. The highway ends at SR-96. After that, US 54 is a 2×2 divided highway. A little further on, between Augusta and Pickrell Corner is another highway section. Then US 54 turns north and US 400 continues straight to Parsons in the southeastern part of the state.
US 54 then temporarily runs north along with US 77 to El Dorado, where US 54 turns east and US 77 continues straight to Junction City. US 54 then continues its montonous journey to the east, through sparsely built-up areas. Only 100 kilometers after El Dorado you come to an important intersection, with US 75 in Yates Center, the road from Independence in the south to the capital Topeka in the north. At Iola you cross US 169, the road from Coffeyville to Kansas City. The road network here is in a perfect grid pattern of 1 by 1 mile. At Moran you cross the US 59, the road from Parsons to Lawrence. The last place before the Missouri border is Fort Scott, where US 69intersects the highway from Pittsburg to Kansas City. Then US 54 crosses the Missouri border.
History
US 54 was created in 1926. In the early 1930s, US 54 was largely unpaved, only in the wider Wichita region and in the far east of the state the road was continuously paved. In addition, US 54 had a deviated route in Seward County near Liberal, where US 54 followed current US 83 and US 160 in a detour. In the 1930s this part was cut off over the current route. By 1940, all of US 54 in Kansas was paved.
Wichita
Since the mid-1980s, US 54 at Wichita, Kellogg Avenue, has been upgraded to a freeway. This is the primary east-west freeway through Wichita. The first section to be upgraded was west of I-135, to I-235 west of Downtown. Beginning in the second half of the 1990s, US 54 east of Downtown was upgraded. In 2006, the highway had extended east to Woodlawn Street, and in 2009 the final section opened to I-35, making the route through Wichita a freeway. Later, the freeway was extended 3 kilometers further east to K-96 on the east side of Wichita between 2017 and 2019. This section opened on November 21, 2019.
Traffic intensities
West of Wichita, the US 54 is a quiet connection with usually around 3,000 vehicles per day. The highway section west of Wichita is minimally busier with 5,000 to 7,000 vehicles per day. In Wichita, the highway is the busiest in the city with 106,000 vehicles near the center. Towards El Dorado this drops again to about 2,200 vehicles. East of Wichita, barely 2,000 vehicles are picked up every 24 hours.
