The road between Ellsworth and Salina is mostly rough to Brookville; however, when the resurfacing work is done — probably by winter — Kansas Highway 140 is expected to be wider with a speed limit faster than the current 55 miles an hour.

Karlton Place, area engineer for the Kansas Department of Transportation, said crews will survey the highway — probably in the spring and summer months of 2020 — once work is done to determine new speed limits.

He expects the limit to be raised to 60 miles an hour. With the traffic count between 1,400 and 2,000 vehicles a day, 10 percent of which is large trucks, he doesn’t think the highway can handle a higher speed. Hills and curves through Ellsworth County also are a factor.

Construction on the state- and federally-funded project started Aug. 14 and will continue until improvements are finished between Kansas Highway 14 at Ellsworth and Interstate 1-35 in Saline County. The project is 33 miles long.

Place said Shilling Construction of Manhattan, which won the bid for the K-140 project, is also working on US-81 north of Salina. Construction should pick up on K-140 in the next week or two when the crew finishes the work on US-81.

Weather permitting, “construction will take 85 days,” Place said of the Ellsworth-Saline county project.

Cost of the Ellsworth County portion of the project is $2.2 million. The Saline County portion is set at $2.4 million for a total cost of $4.6 million.

Place said the highway improvements are expected to last about seven years, depending on weather, traffic and other factors.

He said K-140 travelers can expect maximum delays of about 15 minutes over the next few months. Motorcyclists are encouraged to take an alternate route because of grooves in the road’s pavement. The contact surface of a motorcycle tire is small so much of the bike’s contact with the road is lost. The grooves cause the front wheel to move without control whenever the grooves are not perfectly smooth and even.