LENEXA, Kan. — The City of Lenexa, Kansas, is expanding a system aimed at keeping snow and ice from accumulating on bridges. The goal is to make roads safer for drivers.

Pavement on bridges and overpasses often freezes first, leading to dangerous conditions and crashes in some cases.

Two bridges in the city - and a third under construction - are equipped with a system to spray a type of liquid salt on the road to prevent ice and snow from building up.

"The spray system will keep them from icing up before [snow plows] can get there. So when crews get out here to put salt on it, usually it's running water because it hasn't had a chance to freeze," explained Ted Semadeni, assistant to the Lenexa director of municipal services.

Bridges taking College Boulevard over I-35 and Prairie Star Parkway over Mill Creek between Woodland and Renner Roads have this system. The city will add it to a new bridge set to open by the end of 2019 on the Ridgeview Road extension from K-7 to Prairie Star Parkway.

Because the city used its own staff to install the system it saved money. The bill was about $10,000 to equip each bridge this way.

City staff dials a specific number to activate the system from a phone. When the city finishes building the new bridge with this same system on Ridgeview Road, it will upgrade the technology.

"When this one gets built, we're actually going to have a mobile app that we will be able to set the bridge off with instead of having to call with a cellphone. We're moving into the future with it," Semadeni said.

Lenexa installed this system about ten years ago on the first two bridges.

—