The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) hosted a public meeting on Thursday to provide information to the public and receive information about road improvements in Callaway County.
MoDOT’s intersection improvements would be at U.S. Route 54 and Old Jefferson City Road/County Road 306 interchange in Fulton.
The project would add offset left-turn lanes at Old Jefferson City Road/County Road 306. The lanes would be on eastbound U.S. Route 54 towards County Road 306 and on westbound U.S. Route 54 towards Old Jefferson City Road.
This project would widen U.S. Route 54 eastbound and westbound with acceleration and deceleration lanes, allowing cars a dedicated lane for getting on or off the roadway.
Land would be raised on both County Road 306 and Old Jefferson City Road between the acceleration and deceleration lanes.
New routes would also be necessary with the crossover intersection getting removed.
Traffic leaving County Road 306 would have to turn right onto U.S. Route 54 westbound. Traffic would then have to exit onto State Highway H and turn around onto U.S. Route 54 eastbound.
The approximate travel time for the 2.2 miles would be 2.5 minutes.
Traffic leaving Old Jefferson City Road would also have to turn right on U.S. Route 54 eastbound. Traffic would exit to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and turn around onto U.S. Route 54 westbound.
The approximate travel time for the 1.9 miles would be two minutes.
MoDOT’s project would also remove the crossover area at the area’s intersection.
The intersection improvements would have impacts on traffic during the daytime. There would be single-lane closures for construction. The crossover at the intersection would be permanently closed once construction begins.
MoDOT’s estimated budget for the project is $1.6 million.
Mia Peters, transportation project manager, said this estimation was made in Feb. and has likely increased or decreased since then.
The project is expected to be included in MoDOT’s Nov. 2023 letting, which is when contractors may submit bids for it.
Construction is expected to begin in 2024.
According to MoDOT, the targeted area has an average daily traffic of almost 15,000 vehicles daily.
Peters said this project will improve traffic flow in the area and improve safety.
“(It will) kind of simplify the intersection, because now you won’t have people crossing over and then people who are also turning and then trying to decide ‘okay, who has the right-of-way,'” Peters said.
She said the traffic department with MoDOT looked over projects where safety could be improved, and this project “kind of rose to the top.”
Peters said the public meeting is the first step in the feedback process. Citizens could submit comments on the project at the meeting.
Comments can also be submitted online on MoDOT’s website.
Comments can be mailed-in as well. To submit comments through the mail, send comments to Callaway County U.S. Route 54/Old Jefferson City Road Intersection Project, 1511 Missouri Boulevard, Jefferson City, MO 65102.
The comment period is open from June 29-July 14.
“We do feel like this is the best design for this intersection,” Peters said.
Jay Rikers, MoDOT’s consultant who worked on the project, said there have been three fatalities in the project area in the past five years. He said this was a big factor for the area being chosen for renovation.