MoDOT held an informational meeting for the Warrenton to Wentzville section of the Improve I-70 project at the Warrenton High School on Feb. 3. 

The $600 million project, the largest in MoDOT’s history, will widen Interstate 70 to three lanes and include improvements to some highway interchanges in the county. 

The project will widen Interstate 64 to three lanes from Highway K to where it meets with Interstate 70. The interchange between I-70 and I-64 will also be revamped along with interchanges in Warren County at Highway T in Foristell, Elm Street in Wright City and Highway 47 in Warrenton. 

Designs for those interchanges were released late last year and can be viewed online at https://www.modot.org/improvei70/warrentonwentzville under project renderings. 

While most of the information available at the meeting had already been released, there were some new details, like a more specific schedule for construction. 

Construction is supposed to begin this spring with a projected completion date in late 2028. 

Improve I-70 east Project Director Kim Trainor said the first place in Warren County where work will take place will be between Highway 47 in Warrenton and the rest stop in Wright City. 

“They’re breaking it into chunks, so the very first place they’re going to start is between 47 at Warrenton to the rest area at Wright City,” said Trainor. 

She said they will largely focus on widening the interstate first, and will begin work on interchange updates later. While decisions remain on the specifics of work to replace highway overpasses in Warrenton, Wright City and Foristell, she said MoDOT plans to hold additional public meetings before those overpasses are replaced. 

“We thought if we had all that information here tonight, it might have been information overload,” said Trainor. “And some of these interchanges we’re not going to get to until 2026 or 2027 and people might forget.”

She expected there to be an impact to traffic as work continued although she said they were going to do their best to keep the road as open as possible. 

“During the day, we plan to keep two lanes of traffic open, the lanes are going to be narrower, but two lanes of traffic,” said Trainor. 

She did concede traffic may be temporarily limited to one lane late at night to accommodate deliveries and more intensive construction work. 

Attendees at the meeting, like Warren County residents Terry and Fran Peters, felt like they were more informed about the project. The Peters’ said that while they had heard that there were changes coming to the interstate they did not know the extent of the work and Terry said the meeting was “very educational.”

There was some confusion between county and city officials about the scope of MoDOT’s work, and Wright City aldermen recently met with MoDOT to verify where and how the work would be done. 

Last year, Wright City and Warren County officials worked with the state legislature and earned a $40 million earmark that was added to the project to fund interchange improvements in Warren County. 

“There were announcements of Interstate 64 getting some improvements, Highway K was getting improvements, Foristell’s overpass was getting improvements, and we felt as the elected officials of Wright City, that if we didn’t start engaging with MoDOT as soon as possible we were going to be looked over,” said Wright City Alderman Ramiz Hakim. 

City officials had hoped that with the earmark, they would be able to see a highway interchange at the Stracks Church Road overpass in Wright City. Hakim said it has been a goal for city officials for some time as it has been on the statewide transportation improvement plan for some time and it presents a safety risk. 

“If first responders are on the Stracks Church Road interchange and there’s an accident below them, they’re gonna have to drive all the way to 47 or Wildcat to turn around and go back on the highway,” said Hakim. 

While Hakim was disappointed Stracks Church Road was overlooked when plans were released, he felt the situation had been misrepresented by MoDOT. 

Hakim felt the representation was that if Wright City was able to secure the funding from the legislature, it would be used for an interchange at Stracks Church Road. This was not the case. 

The project was bid through the design-build process, in which contractors conduct the design phase of the project first and show MoDOT what they will be able to do with the preset price tag. 

The winning design from Emory Sapp and Sons and Clarkson Construction did not include any changes to Stracks Church Road. 

He said MoDOT officials told them without the earmark from the legislature, there would have been no upgrades to interchanges in Warren County, which was confirmed by Trainor. 

While there will not be any updates to Stracks Church Road, county residents can still expect significant changes and construction in the near future. 

“At some point there’s going to be construction happening all over the place here,” said Trainor. “It’s going to be great when it’s done, but please just have patience (while) it’s under construction.”