Portion of highway in Jefferson City will close for bridge demolition

MoDOT will be closing a portion of a major highway in Cole County later this week as crews continue to work on the Lafayette Street Interchange.

MoDOT officials said Thursday this is a rare event, and they don’t shut down heavily-traveled roads like this very often. Funding issues will keep projects like this few and far between.

“A project like this is something that we used to do very frequently, we used to have a lot of these jobs we’d do around the state. Right now, we’re unfortunately in a situation where the money coming in isn’t matching the demands that we have as a state, what the taxpayers of Missouri want and need. So, this is one of the last big projects that we have in Mid-Missouri,” said Central District Engineer David Silvester.

Highway 50/63 eastbound at Madison Street will be closed on Friday at 7:00 p.m. through 6 a.m. Monday so the Chestnut Street and Jackson Street overpasses can be removed.

Traffic will be allowed on north and south Broadway, Jefferson, and Madison streets from Highway 50/63.

MoDOT has put up electronic boards with available detour routes.

Westbound traffic coming from the east should follow the detours. The McCarty Street and Eastland Drive exits will be open, and the last exit for westbound traffic to exit 50/63 will be Clark Avenue.