By Pauline Masson –
Engineers are under contract to redesign the intersection of North First Street at Osage, rebuildng the roadway, adding one lane and widening another.
The result is expected to make more room for traffic, especially tractor trailers, entering the intersection, and enable the City to establish an enforceable truck route to and from the Denton Road industrial parks.
Anyone who has ever sat in backed up traffic as semis swung wide enough to make the turn onto First Street can attest to the traffic woes created by the existing roadway and the need to ease traffic flow.
The City has been awarded a $1,115,216 federal 80-20 matching grant to rebuild the First Street entry to Osage, with federal funding capped at $892,173. The City will pay the remaining twenty percent, $223,043.
The Missouri Department of Transportation, MoDOT, will oversee the project.
One interesting stipulation in the grant is that the public – the motorists most affected by traffic snarls at the intersection – will be allowed to view the details of the reconstruction design and offer their opinions before construction begins.
HR Green, Chesterfield, Missouri has been awarded a $204,678 contract to engineer the road improvements, design the new configuration, prepare a construction plan, meet with the public to explain the design and inspect the work daily as construction takes place.
A key component of the project is the vacant lot where the historic O’Connell house once hugged the corner of the intersection at 222 North First Street, which the City purchased and demolished to make way for the intersection improvement project. In the conceptual sketch, engineers show the new right turn lane crossing into the corner of the former residential lot.
The conceptual sketch shows eastbound traffic turning onto a new right-turn lane through the corner of where the O’Connell house stood, northbound and westbound traffic using a second lane, and the traffic entering First Steet from Osage heading south would have a wider lane to better accommodate semis.
Engineers will spend the better part of 2023 developing right-of-way plans, studying the traffic, water run off, sewer lines, electric lines, ADA sidewalk connections, traffic signals, street signs and surrounding property affected by the recostruction project.
Residents will have an opportunity to weigh in on the design of the project. Once the Conceptual Design Study is complete, the city will host an informational meeting to gather feedback on the concept before moving into the formal Preliminary Design Phase.
As provided in the contract between the City and the engineering firm, final roadway design will be based on the results of a concepåçting will be conducted to present the Preliminary Plans to the affected stakeholders, elected city officials, and other interested parties. Engneers will be on hand to answer questions and large display boards will show strip map of the proposed design.
Target date for MoDOT to review the final design is September 2023
Once the plan is approved construction is expected to take 60 days to complete.
study and comment all you want, but based on the actions of the City fathers in the past I see little hope of them actually doing anything more than ‘token listening’. but we should try.
Agreed 💯💯
Hopefully MoDot won’t do any roundabouts