Happy New Year! The weather has sucked and I've been busy. Also, I've got a four year old who loves watching Scooby Doo on the couch with me before bed and frankly I'd rather do that than sit at a computer posting stuff. In fact as soon as he gets done with his apple, he's going to be over here wondering when this post will be done. Too bad he's going to have to wait until his little sister gets done with the book she's flipping through on my lap.....
First off, in case you were wondering, the big "Beyond the Loop" Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) planning study is over. The big planning study being the one that looked at I-70, US 169 Buck O'Neil Bridge, and MO-9/Heart of American crossing. You can review the final plan and presentation at the MARC website here. I just want to highlight a few things. First off, a lot of people took time to engage the planning process using the online surveys and it showed in the data. There were a lot of responses from the 64150/51 zip codes so I know a lot of you took the time to take the surveys which was awesome. The planning process got more data than paid presidential polling.
While that planning process was going on, some things happened. Kansas City and MoDOT secured a $25M federal TIGER grant towards the new bridge. Kansas City renewed its 1 cent sales tax and the MARC region devoted $40M towards the new bridge.
MoDOT did some repairs to keep the bridge open so that a new bridge could be cleared environmentally and then bid for construction. In case you wanted to see what condition the bridge was in, I pilfered some pictures from MoDOT's Flickr page. The existing bridge is a "Tied Arch Bridge" which I have an opinion on but I'll let you look at whether or not it is a bridge type built to be easily maintained. Here is what the bridge deck joints looked like.
Here are the Governor and Mayor probably wondering how many times they drove across the bridge in the past year after they saw its condition and how safe it was to park their vehicles on the bridge with that big gap in the expansion joint. The Governor has a look on his face like "Are you sure it's safe to be standing here????"
Here's a shot showing all the rust in the members that can't be "unrusted" and would need to be replaced with a $50M bridge rehab.
And yes, I do drive my big van and family across the bridge so you don't need to worry about it now that the short term, critical repair project is done.
Anyways, the PEL was one federal process and now there's a new process to complete an environmental study on just the new bridge crossing. MoDOT has set up a website for the project here that you can bookmark. There is an open house (ie no formal presentation) public meeting tomorrow, Tuesday 2/12/2019, at MARC at 600 Broadway but you can review the materials with an online public meeting. I'm just going to post the displays for you here before you go there so you can see them all at once.
So above is all the stuff that is the base of the study. Now below are the three cones of impact from a new bridge. Please note that there's a "process" which must be adhered (and I've written like eight things and deleted them) so I'm not going to explain or editorialize. The "cones" are areas to be environmentally cleared and don't mean that's how wide or where exactly new bridge or ramps are going. This is the first step "in the process" so you need to review and provide feedback however that may be.
Eastern alignment with new bridge right next to existing bridge and any traffic improvements at the existing 5th/6th and Broadway interchange.
Center alignment with new connections somewhere just west of Broadway.
Western alignment with the most direct I-35 connection.
Also being looked at is how the Woodsweather Road connection is impacted by a new bridge.
So now you need to TAKE THE SURVEY. You also need to share the survey. Help repeat the engagement level of the PEL study. Now if you'll excuse me, someone's getting cranky about his Scooby Doo and someone's crawling up the stairs....
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