The public is invited to look at and comment on a preliminary design for a project that will add a third lane on I-55 between Pevely and Festus.
An in-person public meeting will be held from 4:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5, at the Festus Public Library, 400 W. Main St.
The next day, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) will hold a virtual meeting from 7-8 p.m.
Stephen O’Connor, area engineer for MoDOT, said the Oct. 5 event will feature an open-house format, with no formal presentation planned.
“People who are interested in the project can come and go,” he said. “We’ll have some presentation boards for people to look at, and there will be staff who can answer questions.”
The virtual meeting the next night will be held via the Zoom video-conferencing app.
“We’ll have a moderator and slides illustrating the project, with participants able to type in their questions, and engineers will be able to share their screens to answer those questions,” O’Connor said.
Advance registration for the virtual meeting is required through the I-55 Corridor Improvements section of the MoDOT website (modot.org).
Registration is not required to attend the Oct. 5 meeting at the Festus Public Library.
The project, estimated to cost as much as $236 million, is included in the current state Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) approved by the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council of Governments, which coordinates road projects in the St. Louis region. The project calls for widening and other improvements along the stretch of I-55 from 1 1/2 miles north of Hwy. Z in Pevely to 1 mile south of the Hwy. 67 interchange south of the Twin Cities.
At its June 2 meeting in Hillsboro, the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission, which oversees MoDOT, approved the I-55 concept as a design-build project.
The approval will allow MoDOT to seek civil engineering firms to submit their plans for the project, and those firms will recruit a contractor to build from those specifications.
Under the current schedule, an engineering firm will be awarded the contract for the project in May.
O’Connor said construction work could begin later in 2023, with work wrapping up sometime in 2026.
He said all comments will be considered by MoDOT when refining the plans for the project.
“What we will have at the meetings are conceptual plans drawn up by a consulting engineer,” he said. “This is basically a framework that can be considered by the engineering firm that will ultimately design the project. The firm that ultimately is awarded the project can come up with its own solutions.”
O’Connor said it’s not unusual for suggestions from the public to be incorporated into the plans.
“We consider all comments and suggestions made by the public,” O’Connor said.
Those who cannot make either meeting may submit written comments by email to Justin Wolf, the project manager, at justin.wolf@modot.mo.org.
Comments will be considered through Oct. 19.