by Ron McLinden
Chances are you’re familiar with I–70, a mostly four–lane “freeway” stretching 251 miles across Missouri from just south of the confluence of the Kaw River with the Missouri at Kansas City to a few miles downstream from the confluence of the Missouri with the Mississippi at St. Louis.
I–70 has the distinction of having the oldest stretch of Interstate highway in the country. Ground was broken for a 2.6 mile segment in St. Charles County in August of 1956, shortly after President Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highway Act. The last stretches of I–70 were completed in 1965 in Jackson and Lafayette Counties.
Nearly all of I–70 is a lot older than the 20 years its pavement was designed to last. Trucks are heavier, faster, and more numerous now than in 1956, and that has taken an especially heavy toll. Much of I–70’s pavement has turned to powder — a fact that is disguised under layers of asphalt.
Meanwhile traffic continues to grow, especially in the metropolitan areas. Traffic counts in 1995 were a modest 24,000 per weekday near Kingdom City and 22,000 near Concordia, but over 50,000 at Columbia, over 100,000 at Kansas City, and approaching 190,000 near Earth City in suburban St. Louis. And that was five years ago! Factor in another five years of economic expansion and urban sprawl and those numbers are considerably higher today.
So what’s a MoDOT to do?
For starters MoDOT has just about completed a “feasibility study” of a broad band across Missouri’s mid–section. The study is not quite complete, but it has reportedly taken a look at five strategies for dealing with traffic in this mid–state corridor. Briefly, those five strategies are:
1) “No Build” — maintain and conserve the existing highway, but without adding any new “capacity.”
2) “Improve Existing Parallel Corridors” — convert US 36 and/or US 50 to four–lane freeways with the hope of diverting some traffic from I–70. MoDOT figures this would help, but that there’d once more be too much congestion on I–70 after 2030.
3) “Add Capacity to I–70” — make I–70 a six–lane freeway all the way across the state. This would provide relief, but MoDOT figures they’d have to go to eight lanes after 2030, so they’d plan bridges and right of way to allow for that additional widening.
4) “Construct New Facility” — build a new four–lane toll road just a few miles north or south of the existing route.
5) “Other Modes” — consider the potential for bus or high–speed rail passenger service in the corridor, plus higher–speed freight rail service. MoDOT felt it had to consider this option in order to avoid being criticized as short–sighted.
Now, apparently without officially ruling out any of the above five options, MoDOT has hired a consultant to do an “I–70 Improvement Study.” This study appears to focus primarily on options 3 and 4, with maybe token consideration given to option 5. (I say “appears” because it has been difficult to get unambiguous answers from MoDOT and its consultant.)
It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that this new study will determine what MoDOT does in the I–70 corridor in the next thirty years. Those actions will, in turn, determine not only the character of Missouri’s mid–section and the visual image we present to out–of–state travelers, but also the economic future of towns in the US 36 and US 50 corridors for the indefinite future.
Frankly, I’m not convinced MoDOT realizes the significance of what they are about to do.
Consider the “ditch factor.” In some respects an interstate highway is like a “ditch,” attracting the “water” of traffic. Travelers tend to choose routes they think will be fast, and that offer few decision points where they might make a wrong turn and get lost. That means they will choose an interstate highway, even though it might be many miles longer. Besides, the greater traffic volume assures the traveler of the availability of services along the way. Thus, a traveler from Kansas City to either Chicago or Cape Girardeau is likely to take I–70 all the way to suburban St. Louis, even though a much shorter route could be plotted. An interstate highway “ditch” made “deeper” by adding lanes will reinforce such patterns and attract additional traffic — including traffic that would choose a more direct route, were such a route available.
Local impacts of that deeper ditch are another factor to consider. Don’t expect to see more exits on I–70. Instead, expect to see more traffic at the existing exits as more travelers get off the interstate for food and fuel and lodging, then back on. That makes for more business locally, but it also means more traffic for local citizens to cope with.
Local traffic should, in fact, get a lot of special consideration. Consider Columbia, where half of the traffic on I–70 is local — either commuter traffic headed to or from school or work, or shopper traffic headed across town to save a few cents on toilet paper at the whopper–mart complex on the east side of town, or to “do the mall” on the west side of town. Adding some strategic local routes, plus shutting down a few pairs of access ramps on I–70, would do wonders for reducing conflicts between coast–to–coast truckers and cross–town shoppers. In fact, MoDOT could probably save money by building such local routes and giving them to the city instead of widening I–70.
The toll road option appears to be severely handicapped in the study. As long as citizens can get a widened I–70 “free,” why would they express interest in a new parallel toll facility that they’d have to pay to use? Even the prospect of a proposed 80–mph speed limit on such a facility isn’t likely to attract much interest compared to a “free” I–70.
Should an environmentalist weep over not seeing a new road built? Not under normal circumstances, but we’ve heard MoDOT people say that if such a toll road were built, then sufficient right of way would also be acquired for a future high–speed rail line. Such a line might easily provide three–hour service between St. Louis and Kansas City, compared to the four–hour service that might be possible by upgrading the existing Amtrak route. Without the toll road, prospects for true high–speed rail across Missouri appear dim.
The “phasing” of future highway projects will be critical. Adding lanes to I–70 before upgrading US 36 and US 50 would deepen the “interstate ditch” and deny both access and economic opportunity to towns in the other corridors, as well as reduce route choices available to travelers. Early upgrade of US 36 and US 50 would appear to be the better course of action. Though such upgrades might not eliminate the need to widen I–70 eventually, they would offer travelers a wider range of good routes in the interim. And by the time widening I–70 does become necessary we might have endured enough years of unbearably high gas prices to make true high–speed rail for both freight and passengers an attractive alternative to adding more lanes.
But how will these decisions be made? MoDOT has held a first round of public meetings — the so–called open format “show and control” type, not the true “public hearing” type — in late February and early March. But the eastern–most meeting was in Wentzville and the western–most was in Oak Grove. Citizens of St. Louis and Kansas City, who probably make up the majority of current I–70 users, and who certainly are the most likely users of high–speed rail or a new toll road, were left out. Similarly, citizens in the US 36 and US 50 corridors were not consulted. MoDOT people say that metro area citizens will have a chance to be involved in separate studies of I–70 within the metro areas. But those studies will likely take the results of the I–70 Improvement Study as input, so by the time metro area citizens get a chance to express their views, a toll road and high–speed rail might no longer be options.
MoDOT needs to actively seek citizen input from the two metro areas, as well as from the parallel corridors, as they go about making decisions that will determine the future of the mid–section of the state.
For further information about the I–70 Improvement Study check a special website,www.i70study.org. You can make comments directly from that website, or write the project consultant at I–70 Improvement Study, PO Box 410482, Kansas City MO 64141–0482, or call the project hotline, 1(800)590–0066.