It's been talked about for several years, and now, the Cole County Commission has approved a contract for a joint project with Jefferson City to address traffic backing up onto U.S. 54 from the off-ramp at Jefferson Street and congestion on Stadium Boulevard.
At Tuesday's commission meeting, a contract was awarded to Layman Construction for more than $2.1 million to do the project. That's 15 percent below the engineers estimate of more than $2.4 million.
The Jefferson City Council will possibly give their approval to the project at its meeting next week.
At the Jefferson and Stadium intersection, the project includes putting in a dual-lane roundabout with a right-hand slip lane coming off the U.S. 54 exit ramp through Stadium to Christy Drive. The project also will widen Stadium back to the Trinity Lutheran Church driveway.
City and county officials said the project will take two years to complete. Some work will be done this year, particularly the stormwater work on the project. Next year, the work on the intersection will take place.
The whole project is expected to be done by August 2017.
Work on the project was scheduled to start this year, but acquisition of right-of-way delayed the work.
Because the intersection is highly trafficked by students of Trinity Lutheran School, Jefferson City High School and Helias Catholic High School, crews will do as much work as possible in increments, and crews will begin construction on the actual roundabout after school lets out.
In other commission business from Tuesday's meeting, commissioners:
Approved this year's chip and seal road program. Missouri Petroleum of St. Louis was awarded the contract for just more than $305,000. The roads where will work be done include: North Bend Road, South Bend Road, Alverno Road, Roy L. Drive, Meadow Wood Drive, Shoshoni Drive, East Meller Road, West Meller Road, Kaylor Bridge Road, Honey Creek Road from Tanner Bridge Road to Route E, Stringtown Station Road, both north and south of Route C, Stringtown Station Court, Meadows For Spur, Rocky Road and Tanner Bridge Road Bridge.
Work is scheduled to start around July 1 and be done by the end of July.
Approved the purchase of a training simulator with Local Emergency Planning Committee funds. Cole County Emergency Management Director Bill Farr told the simulator would be for fuel tank trucks. Not only would it train emergency crews but also truck drivers. Funds from Midland Oil, Jefferson Oil and Phillips 66 would also be available. Farr said Midland and Jefferson currently have no such training for their drivers and are eager to get this started. It's a mobile simulator and could be taken to other parts of the state and would probably be the only one its kind in Missouri. Farr did not say when the $12,000 simulator would be up and running.
