There's more work to be done on I-435, this time on the Missouri side. MoDOT is preparing to renovate, update and change a stretch of the interstate west of Three Trails Crossing (The Grandview Triangle).
"Really from I-49 to the Kansas state line is the most heavily traveled Kansas City Missouri corridor," said Brian Kidwell, Assistant District Engineer for MoDOT in Kansas City. "It carries nearly 140,000 cars per day. There's a lot of congestion, a lot of accidents. We would like to see if we can make that area better."
This project is still in the planning phases as they look for a contractor/designer team.
"We've assembled about $70 million," said Kidwell. "We are going to do a design-build project, which is going to let teams really focus on what's most important in that corridor and that is going to be taking care of the bridges, staying out of the way of the public, doing it as fast as they can and hopefully getting in as much new pavement as they can."
The need for bridge repair is what sparked the I-435 project set for 2018.
"We have to fix the bridges, but we'd like to see the commute get better and more efficient and more dependable for the public," he said. "You try to improve the merges and give folks a little more room before they have to merge. Try and stop the urgent weaving and merging. We'd like to add an extra auxiliary lane through there if we can. It's really kind of a choke point between State Line and I-49."
This project will likely overlap the KDOT I-435 Pavement Reconstruction project that began earlier this year. KDOT is replacing the pavement on I-435 between Quivira and Metcalf in a two year project. That stretch of the interstate is now down to three lanes in both directions and will remain that way through the duration of the project. All lanes are scheduled to reopen in November of 2018.
"Ours isn't going to start until next year," said Kidwell. "KDOT may still have their big pavement project going on as well, but one of the big determining factors on who wins the project will be who can best manage traffic, who will have he least impacts, who will get in there and do the work and hopefully the drivers won't feel it."
If you use eastbound or westbound I-435 between State Line and I-49, take a survey to help MoDOT as it moves forward with plans.
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