At the Thursday, Aug. 13, Wright City Board of Aldermen meeting, residents raised concerns about the Elm Street bridge over Interstate 70. City officials said, though, that making changes such as installing a stop light at the bridge would be the state’s responsibility.

“I just wanted to bring up a safety concern I’ve been seeing a lot lately, especially with the construction that’s going on on 70, and that’s the exit that’s right there at Elm Street,” resident Paul Scott said during public comment at the meeting.

“I’d like to see if we can’t possibly, maybe get a stop that actually stops traffic on Elm Street right there at the highway offramp,” he added. “With everybody that bypasses it, the construction, especially if there was an incident on the interstate, it could get really hard to try to get on or off right at that exit.”

Rita Key, also speaking in public comment, said she has previously brought the Elm Street bridge intersection to officials’ attention.

“Before, I had called the state, whoever it was, and they had come out and actually put some asphalt and stuff down in those holes, so it really helped for a while,” she said. “So, I mean, that’s kind of something that would help a little bit, because it’s so terrible right there at the off-ramp.”

Alderman Don Andrews said Key is not the only one who has brought the issue up with the Missouri Department of Transportation.

“We’ve went to MoDOT several times. The problem is, that’s MoDOT’s road, so they would be the ones that would have to install the stop sign” or light on Elm Street at the intersection with the service road.

“Stop light” is “a scary word here in our town,” Andrews added.

Andrews and Alderwoman Karey Owens both noted that any new signal at the intersection, if installed while I-70 construction is still ongoing, would be temporary.

“The good news is we have under a year left of it,” Owens said of road work at the interchange, while Andrews added that “that whole bridge is coming down.”

According to an Improve I-70 project schedule from February 2025 on the MoDOT website, the Wright City Interchange segment of the project was expected to be complete by the end of 2027.

Speaking to the Record on Monday, Aug. 17, however, Eric Kopinski, director of MoDOT’s Improve I-70 Program, confirmed that the Elm Street bridge is expected to be done by the end of next summer, rather than the end of the calendar year.

“We’re going to be on the same schedule as we were with the 47 bridge, so we’re going to start construction in the late spring and go through the summer, and try to have the bridge opened back up before school starts back up in the fall of next year,” Kopinski said.

“While there’s never a good time to do it, when school’s out of session, we find that that’s sometimes the easiest for the bus routes and the coordination of that. So we’re going to try to thread the needle and do as much as we can while school’s out of session. The other thing is, in the summer time we have the best weather. So hot and dry is really good for us; when it rains or is snowy or cold, it’s really hard for us to pour concrete or do different stuff.”

While exact dates for the demolition of the old bridge and completion of the new one have not been announced, Kopinski said, before work begins, MoDOT will hold a public meeting to solicit feedback from local businesses, residents, and other stakeholders.

“And we’ll explain what our game plan is for how that’s a little different than the 47 bridge. So there’s going to be a couple nuances that are a little different, but it’s going to follow the same schedule, where that will again be a painful summer, but it’s the quickest way for us to get in there, tear down the old bridge, and build a brand new bridge that’s going to be better and have better ramps for that area,” Kopinski said.