WENTZVILLE — Work on adding lanes to the Wentzville-to-Warrenton stretch of Interstate 70 is expected to begin around November 2024, the Missouri Department of Transportation announced Monday.
The approximate 18-mile segment will be the second portion of the 200-mile, $2.8 billion widening project, following a 20-mile stretch between Columbia and Kingdom City in central Missouri that will go first. Work there will begin earlier in the year.
The sequencing for the mammoth project was as MoDOT began a series of public meetings over the next two weeks along the I-70 corridor, including one Monday in Wentzville.
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A bill passed by the Missouri Legislature this year included money for the long-sought I-70 upgrade, which will add a third lane in each direction for about 200 miles from Wentzville to the Kansas City suburb of Blue Springs.
The plan is expected to be fully completed by 2030 and will ease congestion on the highway, a major east-west trucking route, and spur thousands of construction jobs.
Long before the Legislature approved the state I-70 plan, MoDOT already had allocated $39 million to add a third lane in each direction under a railroad bridge at a curve in Wentzville and farther east.
That area for years has caused major traffic congestion on the western end of the ºüÀêÊÓƵ metro area as three lanes drop to two.
That work, which already had been projected to begin in the spring of next year, will now be rolled into the overall Wentzville-to-Warrenton work. As a result, its start will be delayed a few months, said Eric Kopinski, MoDOT’s I-70 program director.
Also added to the widening of the segment will be improvements to the I-70 interchange with Highway 40 (Interstate 64) and Highway 61, on the east end of Wentzville.
To get the most work for the money available, MoDOT is using the “design-build†method of choosing construction companies.
Under that approach, the agency sets a project’s goals and budget, and the team of companies that best meets those is selected for designing and building in one contract.
The Wentzville-Warrenton segment, in St. Charles and Warren counties, is estimated now to cost $400 million to $500 million, MoDOT said. It’s expected to be done by 2028.
Kopinski said MoDOT tentatively expects next March to solicit proposals from construction firms for the Wentzville-Warrenton work.
MoDOT says that on average, 81,700 vehicles a day use the segment. That’s by far the largest traffic volume of any of the six segments in the statewide I-70 project.
“Anyone that drives through that area knows there’s a real need†for improvements, Kopinski said.