JEFFERSON CITY — About 15 local people had a chance to talk with Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) Area Engineer Preston Kramer on April 23 during State Rep. Bennie Cook’s Maries County Day at the Capitol. Kramer shared updates on some of the ongoing and upcoming transportation projects in the eight-county Meramec Region.

Kramer, a Maries County resident, has been MoDOT’s area engineer for the region for 13 years. In addition to his regular meetings with municipalities, he has been the lead on the Interstate 44 study. He asked what the tour group would like to know.

“There are a lot of projects currently going on in Maries County and projects coming up,” he said.

Someone asked for an update on I-44.

Kramer said that in 2023, the General Assembly included $20 million in the budget to study the interstate. MoDOT conducts studies as the first step in finding improvements to transportation routes. Although the department has conducted studies on specific corridors of the interstate, it needs a full study to assess what the route needs in the future.

An earlier study on which Kramer worked examined flooding patterns on I-44 in Jerome. He said spot studies on smaller locations are important for understanding those patterns because shutting down the interstate comes at an estimated cost of $3 million per day to Missouri taxpayers.

I-44 was the subject of a corridor-wide study in 2008 though it stopped at Pacific and did not include the St. Louis area. The study considered the route’s geometry, freight movement, congestion and accident rates. It also broke the corridor into seven segments and prioritized the segments based on the need for improvements.

In 2018, MoDOT conducted a predictive analytics study on I-44. Predictive analytics studies pull from decades of empirical data to estimate how many crashes will likely occur in a segment of road per year and per mile. The model showed that the geometry of the interstate in Pulaski and Phelps counties would lead to crashes at a higher rate than some of the other counties on the route. However, crashes in those counties exceed the study’s predictions by 20 to 30 percent.

MoDOT has two consultants working on the current study. One is analyzing I-44 from the Oklahoma state line to Buckhorn in Pulaski County. The other consultant is analyzing the corridor from Buckhorn to Gray Summit in Franklin County, where the interstate changes from a rural four-lane highway to an urban six-lane highway.

The consultant for the eastern side of the project will oversee the full project. Kramer said the latest update from the consultant was that the firm was finishing data collection and preparing to start the data analysis phase of the project. During the analyzing phase, the consultant will combine previous studies of the corridor to see which segments need the most attention to prioritize the segments. Although the consultants will consider several factors including freight movement and congestion, Kramer said he is directing them to focus heavily on the crash reduction element.

Phase two of the I-44 project will involve getting environmental clearance for as many of the segments as possible. Kramer said the first phase will take up more than $5 million of the $20 million allocated for the studies. The remaining money will not cover environmental clearance for the more than 250 miles encompassing the project. If the project receives more funding, then the whole thing will enter into environmental study.

The budget bill passed by the House included $727 million for improvements to three segments of I-44. One is the overlap of I-44 and Interstate 49 in Springfield. Some funding for a third-lane expansion project near Springfield is already in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) though the scale of the project will grow if more funding is available through the budget. The third location would add a third lane from Doolittle to St. James and other improvements near Rolla.

After the update on I-44, someone asked about plans to change the path of Highway 63.

Kramer said MoDOT completed the environmental and location work on Highway 63 in the 2000s before he was with the department. At the time, MoDOT divided the project into seven segments, which extend from just south of the Highway 63 and Highway 50 interchange near Westphalia to the Phelps County line just north of Rolla.

In 2010, the project received full environmental clearance. Although MoDOT will need to reevaluate the study because it has been more than 10 years since its completion, Kramer said it is much easier to reevaluate than start a study from nothing. The Federal Highway Commission approved the initial study and path of the new highway after considering property effects, environmental factors, crash reduction measures and more. Maps of the proposed preferred alignment still exist.

The first section of the Highway 63 realignment is in the STIP awaiting funding. The section covers the northernmost part of the project from south of Highway 50 to Route T south of Westphalia. The project will bring the highway’s alignment to the west of where it resides. The project is in the STIP for the 2027 fiscal year. Kramer estimated that construction would span 2027 and 2028.

Someone asked if the section through Westphalia would be wide enough to have four lanes.

Kramer said MoDOT was unsure if the highway needs to be four lanes in its entirety because highway capacity data suggests it does not need four lanes. However, safety data suggests the northern two-thirds will need four lanes to minimize danger at county road connections.

Someone asked if the Highway 63 project would address flooding at the Roy Bassett Memorial Bridge because that also leads to flooding on Highway 42, which cuts off the eastern and western sides of Maries County.

Kramer said there has not been much design work around the bridge. When the project gets into detailed designing, flooding at the bridge will be a consideration for the engineers. However, the realigned Highway 63 will follow what is essentially the same path as now south of Maries Road 325 because construction in the 1980s already realigned that part of the route.

Before projects enter the STIP, they exist in MoDOT’s pool of high-priority unfunded needs. Counties and regional transportation committees help guide the department’s priority list. The section of the Highway 63 realignment that would take the route east of Vienna and reconnect near Maries Road 325 is in the highest tier.

Another question about Highway 63 involved the possibility of a turn lane from southbound Highway 63 to eastbound Highway 28 near the Rolla National Airport. In recent years, the Maries County Commission has made the addition of a turn lane at the intersection the county’s highest transportation priority.

Kramer said the county commission had prioritized that intersection as well as the intersections of Highway 42 and Highway 133 in its annual rankings. He also mentioned a recent petition given to the county, MoDOT and the Meramec Regional Planning Commission asking for intersection indicators at the northern junction of Highway 63 and Highway 28.

“In the petition, they identified the solution, which is nice,” Kramer said. “But I don’t think the solution they gave there is the right solution. We do have our traffic folks taking a look at what we can do.”

Kramer said ideally MoDOT would rebuild the intersection so it is a standard “T” intersection, but he was unsure if it would be possible. In the meantime, the department plans to look at other potential solutions.

Someone asked about how the public can see the proposed realignment of Highway 63. MoDOT has the maps available on its website at modot.org/MeramecRt63.

Kramer also recommended that anyone interested in the latest updates from MoDOT sign up for text or email alerts by visiting modot.org and filling out the “Email/Text Updates” section at the bottom of the page. Users can sign up for alerts for statewide updates or updates related to specific counties or routes.