Cole County approves $2.1 million Stadium & Jefferson project
Cole County officials met Thursday morning and approved a more than $2 million road construction project west of Highway 54. It involves the daily traffic at the light at Jefferson and Stadium. The project is part of a two year cooperative project between the city and county.
“It’s really complex on what you do with the intersection there, there have been a few engineering studies and finally the city and county got together and put some money in and also got some money through MODOT through the federal government funding that’s to go to cities and counties. It’s kind of a three-way cooperative to fix that side of the interchange,” said Eric Landwehr, Engineer for Cole County.
Maps shown at the meeting showed that this intersection will soon be made into a roundabout. The roads will also be widened as well at the 54 exit ramp. The $2.1 million project’s cost will be split three ways, $50,000 of it will be paid for by the city and county and the remainder by a grant from MODOT.
Future growth around that area and the current traffic problem are reasons why this project has been in discussion for the last ten years.
“There are traffic backups coming out onto the highway because of Jefferson St. and Stadium St. and it can be dangerous, there are a lot of accidents there on highway 54 and I know MODOT has been really interested in doing it,” said Landwehr.
“Certainly the hospital is building on a $30 million project there at Capital Region and Helias High School is talking about I believe a building expansion for a fine arts building,” said David Bange, PE & Engineer for Jefferson City.
Public works officials with the county and city said they hope these two cooperative project will make driving through this area during rush hour traffic, a little easier.
“There is a lot of things happening along that corridor, hopefully this project will put us in a position where we’ll be able to handle that traffic in the future as well as better handle that traffic today,” said Bange.
The east side project is expected to start in just a few months and the west side project involving Stadium and Jefferson is expected to start by the end of spring in 2016.
