93.9 The Eagle – The News and Talk of Columbia, MO
A state lawmaker from mid-Missouri’s Callaway County says you can expect construction to begin this summer on I-70 between Columbia and Kingdom City in the first phase of the massive I-70 expansion plan between St. Louis and Kansas City.
The state Department of Transportation (MoDOT) briefed State Rep. Jim Schulte (R-New Bloomfield) and other mid-Missouri state lawmakers in both parties this week. Representative Schulte tells 939 the Eagle that MoDOT will award the contract in February for the Columbia to Kingdom City stretch.
“They’re going to redo the interchanges at both of those intersections and then they’re going to add a third lane in both directions between those two locations and that’s going to be the first phase of this I-70 improvement. So we in central Missouri will get the first taste of it, but we’ll also be finished first,” Schulte says.
Representative Schulte is referring to Columbia’s I-70 and Highway 63 interchange and to Kingdom City’s I-70 and Highway 54 interchange. He says the section between Columbia and Kingdom City will take three years to complete.
Missouri Governor Mike Parson bipartisan legislation in August that provides $2.8 billion to rebuild and expand I-70 to six lanes from St. Louis to Kansas City. The governor signed the bill into law at MACC’s Columbia parking lot, near I-70.
