Moberly residents fed up with pothole-plagued Morley Street

MOBERLY, Mo. (KMIZ)

As you drive through the heart of Moberly, you will be greeted by a variety of potholes, cracks and bumps scattered throughout Morley Street.

Morley Street is the main road that runs through Moberly and the poor road conditions have drawn the ire of residents, who claim that the street is damaging vehicles.

Danielle Guszak has lived in Moberly for over 20 years and says she has begun taking detours to avoid South Morley Street. 

“It’s painful because every time your car hits a hole and your car jerks or shutters from it you're just wondering what damage are you doing. So it’s like I’m apologizing to my vehicle ‘I’m sorry you're a good vehicle keep it up.’ Eventually, you just wind up detouring,” Guszak told ABC 17 News. 

Guszak posted her concerns in a Facebook group named “Moberly Talks,” which received dozens of comments from fellow residents sharing similar concerns. 

Audrey Chaney, who has lived in Moberly for three years, claims she had to replace her tires because of the wear and tear from driving down the street. 

“It is so rough it just jerks the car back and forth,” Chaney told ABC 17 news. “I know personally hitting these potholes and stuff are bad because I had purchased a new set of tires and 15,000 miles later I had to purchase a new set of tires because it had busted the belt in one of the tires.” 

Chaney said it cost her nearly $700 to replace her tires. 

“I’m not rich by any means, but at least I was able to afford it," Chaney said. "Some other people in town might not be so lucky." 

Guszak first noticed the deteriorating road conditions about a year ago. She said road conditions became so bad, she had to start straddling the line to avoid bumps while driving. 

“You could straddle the shoulder and do that way but then the shoulder started getting torn up because everybody was driving off center,” Guszak said. 

Mike Mathews has also lived in Moberly for more than two decades. As a driver for DoorDash, he has to drive down South Morley Street several times a day. 

“It’s a big concern for my vehicle and we are going to start getting a lot more traffic here. We have a new subdivision going in across the street here, there’s another one a few hundred yards away on the other side of the railroad tracks. So, I’m afraid it’s only going to get worse, “Matthews said. “If you have to avoid a main thoroughfare in town because of the way it's damaged, it really does need something done about it before it becomes a serious safety issue.” 

Matthews argues the poor road conditions are also negatively impacting his DoorDash customers. 

“One of the places we do a lot of shopping at is the Dollar General and I really hate coming down this, because I have to take the detour a lot and it's affecting our customers,” Matthews said. “I’d like to think some of the local businesses would like to see this road better, too. I mean who is going to move into a brand new house if they have to get their car beat up just trying to get there.” 

The recent swing in weather conditions has added extra stress to roadways. Extreme cold plagued the state in January and temperatures have warmed so far this month. Because of this, the Missouri Department of Transportation says they are actively filling potholes across the state. 

“With the immediate issues of potholes, you know this is the time of year coming after some winter storms, it’s warm during the day, cold at night, there’s a lot of moisture in the ground so that is the perfect time for potholes to form,”  Paula Gough, a Northeast District Engineer for MoDOT, said.  “Our maintenance crews both in Moberly as well as all across the state are actively patching potholes.” 

Some of the potholes have been filled by MoDOT within the past year, but Matthews argues it hasn’t made much of a difference. 

“Instead of having valleys now you got hills,” Mathews said. When asked if it was still doing damage to his car he responded:  “Absolutely, it just went from one extreme to another!” 

Guszak said she has already reached out to MoDOT several times about the issue. 

Gough said MoDOT has a multi-year pavement plan for the 17 counties in the Northeast District that is based on technical data and field observations from maintenance crews.

“Morley is one of the roads that is in the works. Our engineers are currently working on the cost estimates and plans,” Gough said. 

However, Gough added there is currently no timeline for when the road will be fixed, because it is not included in MoDOT’s five-year plan. 

According to Gough, the five-year plan is determined by a variety of factors, including input from regional planning commissions and members of the regional transportation advisory committee.  She also said maintenance crews try to conduct annual inspect every road in the district. 

“We use a large vehicle that takes electronic readings, very technical readings. So almost all of our roads are scanned almost every year. Some of our lower traveled sometimes it's every other but every year,” Gough said.  “Our maintenance crews as well as our district staff are out evaluating roadways all of the time in their area. That’s the most important thing that we are out there putting eyes on the roadway and that also factors into our prioritization and our planning process.” 

MoDOT also takes input from regional planning commissions and members of the Regional Transportation Advisory Committee. Gough says Morley Street is currently being scoped, which is the precursor to going into the construction program. 

“We piece all of that together in order to then evaluate but ultimately we have a fiscally constrained five-year construction program," Gough said. "So, whatever is planned has to work within the fiscal constraints."