The state’s $2.8 billion dollar expansion of Interstate 70 will get a formal groundbreaking Thursday in Columbia.
Gov. Mike Parson will begin the Missouri Department of Transportation’s Improve I-70 Program during the groundbreaking ceremony along with other officials.
This program will add a third lane to eastbound and westbound traffic on the highway statewide. The first section of expansion is between U.S. 63 in Columbia and U.S. 54 in Kingdom City.
This 20-mile section will cost $405 million and is expected to be completed by the end of 2027, according to MoDOT’s project page.
Including U.S. 63, there are six overpasses on the interstate highway between Columbia and Kingdom City. Construction efforts will see the replacement of the overpasses at U.S. 63, St. Charles Road and U.S. 54, Eric Kopinski, the project program director, said in an email.
There will be three properties impacted by the lane expansion in this section, and property owners have already been in contact with the project team, according to Kopinski.
The statewide highway expansions comes following an original $1 billion proposal by Parson to add a new lane to the highways only around Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis.
Legislators decided to expand the scope of the project to cover the entirety of the highway, more than doubling the budget.
Rocheport Bridge
The other I-70 project in Boone County is the ongoing replacement of the Rocheport Bridge over the Missouri River.
The new eastbound bridge is expected to be opened to traffic in December, according to MoDOT Communication Manager Marcia Johnson.
Cleanup work in the area will go into 2025, MoDOT Project Manager Mike Schupp said in a May update.
Several weeks of higher than normal water levels on the river delayed work on the bridge, but Schupp said that the project remains on schedule.
Updates to the bridge remain within the $240 million budget, according to Johnson.