Jackson Heights to host Nov. 6 open house on 75 expansion

Plans to expand U.S. Highway 75 to four lanes between Holton and the highway’s intersection with Kansas Highway 20 in Brown County will be the subject of a Kansas Department of Transportation-hosted open house to be held at Jackson Heights High School, it has been reported.

Information on KDOT’s U.S. 75 expansion study in Jackson and Brown counties will be presented between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 6 at JHHS, which is located about five miles north of Holton. The “come-and-go” event is open to the public, and those who attend will be able to learn about the study, review potential expansion offers and interim improvements and speak with KDOT project staff. 

The U.S. 75 study — which is currently in the discovery phase and has not yet been funded for construction — was identified as a high priority during KDOT “local consult” discussions in 2023 and was selected by Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly for the IKE Development Pipeline, also known as KDOT’s Eisenhower Legacy Transportation Program, in March of 2024.

U.S. 75 between Holton and the Nebraska state line is considered by many to be among the more dangerous roads in Kansas. In the past 10 years, at least 10 motorists lost their lives in accidents on that section of the highway in Jackson County, including four members of a Sabetha family whose deaths resulted from a November 2017 head-on collision north of Netawaka and two JHHS students.

Passing lanes were added along both sides of the highway as a safety measure between 294th and 310th Roads, about eight miles north of Holton, in 2021 and 2022, it was reported. Safety concerns have also been raised about traffic in the vicinity to entrances to Holton Community Hospital and Holton Industrial Park.

For more on this and other stories, please log in to your holtonrecorder.net account and select “Oct. 29, 2025” under “E-Editions.”