Highway Commission Met in Kirksville Projects Awarded for North Central Missouri
MACON – The Missouri Highways and Transportation held its regularly scheduled meeting on June 13 at Truman State University in Kirksville. During the legislative session, the Commission meets in Jefferson City; the remainder of the year it is the practice of the Commission to hold its monthly meetings in various locations around the state. "We were very fortunate to have the Commission meet in our district," said District Engineer Dan Niec of MoDOT’s North Central District. "We are doubly fortunate to have the Commission back in our district again next month on July 18 when they will meet in Chillicothe at the Grand River Inn.
Chuck Boughton, Chairman of the Highway 63 Transportation Corporation, gave a presentation before the Commission. Boughton discussed the progress of upgrading Route 63 to a four-lane facility and requested the Commission allow the Corporation to extend their efforts north of Kirksville to the Iowa line. The Corporation was instrumental in building 23-miles of Route 63 between Macon and Kirksville, by funding a portion of the project with a one-half cent sales tax. Two additional projects in Adair and Macon Counties funded by MoDOT through Amendment 3 dollars; will complete the corridor between Kirksville and Jefferson City (with the exception of the city of Macon) when they are opened to traffic later this year.
Boughton said, "The Missouri Department of Transportation has become a model of the "things that are right" about public agencies: transparency, inclusiveness, and innovation. The current incarnation of MoDOT engaged at the local level. Because of this inclusiveness, local citizens know MoDOT is aware of their needs and issues. Because of MoDOT’s transparency local citizens also know how their issues prioritize with other local issues state-wide and as such the people of Missouri know that with MoDOT ‘a promise made is a promise kept’. With MoDOT’s spirit of innovation ‘it can’t be done’ is not in the vocabulary; ‘not on the radar’ is. ‘Not on the radar" is a challenge that simply means additional innovation is necessary to get the project ‘on the radar’. Transportation corporations creating public/private partnerships are but one example of that spirit of innovation. MoDOT is indeed living up to its promise "Better Roads, Brighter Future" and for that we thank you."
During the meeting two new projects were awarded for the North Central district. A $452,134 project on Route 65 in Mercer and Grundy Counties was awarded to APAC-Missouri, Inc. The project will resurface 7 miles of Route 65 in Mercer County between Mercer and Princeton and overlay 2.2 miles of Route 65 in Grundy County from Route Z north.
The second project, also awarded to APAC, will improve the intersection of Route 65 and College Avenue in Marshall. Permanent signals, adding right turn lanes on Route 65, and adding left turn lanes to College Avenue are included in the $328,012 project, which is a cost share with the city of Marshall.
Both projects are scheduled for completion later this fall.
For more information, contact the MoDOT District 2 Customer Service Center toll-free at 1-888-ASK MoDOT (275-6636) between 6:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. or visit the website at http://www.modot.org/northcentral.
