The design and engineering portion of improvements on Business 50 West in St. Martins is underway.
Before the city sends the plans to the Missouri Department of Transportation for approval, city officials are inviting the public to look at the plans and ask questions 5-7 p.m. Feb. 4 at St. Martins City Hall.
If all goes as planned, city officials hope to begin the bidding after final approval from MoDOT, with construction to be completed later this year.
This project will overlay Business 50 West and add paved 8-foot shared bike/pedestrian lanes in each direction alongside Business 50 West from Evanlee Court to just west of Carel Road.
St. Martins will pay $553,000, along with $397,000 from a MoDOT grant and $250,000 from Cole County, City Administrator Doug Reece said. That brings the total cost for the project to $1.2 million.
The money from Cole County came after county commissioners signed an agreement with St. Martins to receive cooperative funding through the county’s half-cent capital improvement sales tax.
“The city took over Business 50 in the 1990s when the new four-lane highway came in,” Reece said. “Other than filling in potholes, there have been no major improvements since then. It hasn’t been overlayed. It’s the original road from when the new (Business) 50 went in. The city is responsible for the upkeep from Rainbow Drive on west. Going east of Rainbow, it’s Cole County’s responsibility.”
In 2021, Cole County will undertake improvements to reconstruct Business 50 and add an 8-foot greenway on the south side beginning in Apache Flats that will connect with the St. Martins project. The combined projects will total approximately 3.4 miles of roadway and bike/pedestrian improvements.
Earlier this month, the Cole County Commission approved more than $1.1 million for design and construction work on the Apache Flats improvements as part of the county’s 2020 budget.
The first phase of the project, completed in late 2014 for $4.3 million, rebuilt the road and added curbs and gutters, stormwater drainage and a sidewalk along the south side of the road from Country Club Drive west to past South Binder Lake and Babe Ruth drives.
The second phase will begin near Babe Ruth Drive, where the first phase ended in 2014. The work will continue onto Route T in St. Martins. Part of the road will be three lanes, and part of it will be two lanes.
The three-lane section will go just west of Cheyenne Drive then taper to two lanes all the way to Route T. Cheyenne Drive is the end of the commercial area of Apache Flats. It will have a curb, gutter and sidewalk similar to what was put in for the first phase of improvements.