In the dog days of the summer, Tonganoxie wrapped up its final phase of a three-prong street improvement project.

Rice, who has lived just off of Sixth Street for 30-plus years, said he and his neighbors are happy with the way things turned out.

“Everybody I talked to just thinks they did one heck of a real good job,” Rice said.

And, he noted, neighborhood residents weren’t overly inconvenienced during the construction phase.

“It was well worth it,” Rice said. “There weren’t any problems at all because when you got ready to go out they saw that you got out and then they saw that you got back.”

The project’s first phase — improvements to the intersection of U.S. Highway 24-40 and Kansas Highway 16 — was completed two years ago. The second phase included work on Fourth Street from Green Street to U.S. Highway 24-40, completed in 2003. And the final step, completed this summer, focused on Sixth Street, Eighth Street and River Street, said City Administrator Shane Krull.

“Basically we went in to improve the drainage through there, not only on Sixth Street, but on River and Eighth Street as well,” Krull said.

To improve drainage, the streets needed to be brought into better condition.

“So we enclosed storm sewers and added curb and gutters to better route the water, and subsequently widened the street and installed new asphalt,” Krull said.

As in the other phase of the project, the city combined efforts with Meadows Construction.

“They installed the storm water collection and gutters and then the city crews came in and did the asphalt work,” Krull said.

In the summer project, Krull estimated Meadows Construction did about 50 percent of the work. May and June rainfall complicated the project.

“But after we got past the rainy period, things went real well,” he added.

Krull said Phase 1 at the highway intersection cost $306,125. Phase 2, along Fourth Street totaled $329,307; and Phase 3, along, Sixth, Eighth and River streets came to $180,801.