Worley Street to close in Columbia as Stadium Boulevard construction continues

Road crews are preparing to close down a major road in Columbia. Worley Street just east of Stadium Boulevard will be closed Wednesday and Thursday nights from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. for stormwater drainage installation.

The work is part of the ongoing Stadium Boulevard improvements. Crews tell us the work is slow, but progress is being made.

Missouri Department of Transportation officials tell ABC 17 News where they’re really focused is on the bridge over I-70. Once that’s done, traffic flow should be a lot better, but not completely solved.

If you’ve driven on Stadium Boulevard recently, you’ve noticed a lot of orange barrels, workers and construction equipment. MoDOT officials said the improvements are on schedule, but they’re coming across a lot of obstacles.

“Every other day there’s something new that may have been unforeseen, if there’s anything like that, it’s maybe anything we didn’t know that was down there,” MoDOT resident engineer Charles Sullivan said.

Sullivan said it’s causing them to be a little over-budget. He said they’ve run into bad pavement and ground that they’ve had to pay to fix. But he believes getting the work on the bridge over I-70 done will open a lot more options to divert traffic.

Sullivan says it’s important because streets like Worley and Ash will need to be closed for entire weekends at some point.

Right now, crews are asking all drivers to be patient. They say there are a lot of changes going on and the traffic is slow, but it won’t always be like that.

“Progress is being made, it’s just going to take time now. It looks like there’s a lot of orange barrels out there, a lot of barricades, a lot of people working, but one day it’s going to pop together and it will be open,” Sullivan said.

Construction is scheduled to be completed by Nov. 2014. Sullivan said even with some hiccups, he still expects that to happen.

The cost of the entire project is about $12.8 million.