ST. CHARLES — State highway officials expect to begin construction a year from now on the recently funded $2.8 billion widening of Interstate 70 — and a segment in St. Charles and Warren counties is in the running to be the first phase.
Eric Kopinski, the Missouri Department of Transportation’s I-70 program coordinator, said Wednesday that stretches of the cross-state highway in the Columbia and suburban Kansas City areas also are being considered for the initial work.
“One of those, we’re hopeful, will be under construction this time next year and then soon after that, every six months we’ll be awarding a project that will be pretty substantial in size,†he said in an interview outside a meeting of the state Highways and Transportation Commission, which oversees MoDOT.
Gov. Mike Parson last month signed a budget bill that includes the long-sought I-70 upgrade, which will add a third lane in each direction for about 200 miles between Wentzville and the Kansas City suburb of Blue Springs.
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The plan will ease congestion on the road, a major east-west trucking route, and spur thousands of construction jobs.
Long before the Legislature signed off on the statewide I-70 funding in May, MoDOT 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 has for years caused major traffic congestion on the western edge of the ºüÀêÊÓƵ metro area as three lanes drop to two. The work there, which already had been expected to begin next year, is now likely to be rolled into the statewide project.
“Ideally, rather than just fixing the bottleneck at the railroad bridge, it would be really great ... to keep going toward Warrenton†with added lanes at about the same time, Kopinski said.
How much of the approximate 15-mile distance between Wentzville and Warrenton could be handled in the same initial project has yet to be determined, he said.
Kopinski said MoDOT also is considering possibly adding to the project some improvements to the I-70 interchange with Highway 40 (Interstate 64) and Highway 61, which is farther east in Wentzville.
MoDOT director Patrick McKenna said he expected that a decision will be made next month on which segment will be the first to be built in the statewide I-70 program, which will take several years to complete.
Meanwhile, the commission on Wednesday approved about $10 million in contracts and contract extensions to do preliminary work related to the I-70 project, including some involving surveying, right of way and utility line relocation.
I-55 Jeffco project
The commission also voted to select a team led by KCI Construction Co. for a $206 million project to widen an approximate 6-mile stretch of Interstate 55 from Highway Z in Pevely to Highway 67 in Festus, and to make other improvements.
The project includes adding a third lane in each direction, replacing 14 bridges, rehabbing 12 bridges and building four new interchanges. The three-year project is expected to start next year, McKenna said.
To get the most for the funds available, MoDOT used the “design-build†method. Under that approach, the agency sets a project’s goals and budget, and the team that best meets those is picked to craft the design and schedule in one contract.
On the team with KCI, based in Green Park in south ºüÀêÊÓƵ County, is Bartlett & West Inc. of Sunset Hills and Kansas City-based Wilson & Co. MoDOT picked the team over one led by Millstone Weber of St. Charles.