Plan Extra Time for Weekend, Summer Travel on I-70

If summer plans are taking you on the road and your travels include Interstate 70, the Missouri Department of Transportation is reminding you to allow extra time for your journey.
Traffic on Interstate 70 near Boonville is reduced to one lane in each direction so the two bridges over the Lamine River can be repaired. The bridge repair project is one of 15 work zones on I-70 this construction season.

The bridge closures are expected to cause significant travel delays, especially on peak travel days, the worst of which are Thursdays and Fridays. MoDOT officials are strongly encouraging I-70 motorists to use alternate east-west routes, such as U.S. Routes 50 and 36, while the project is in progress.
The bridge work is scheduled to be completed by the end of August, at which time traffic flow will return to two lanes in each direction.

Message boards along I-70 will alert motorists to the bridge work, as well as provide travel times and traffic alerts. In addition, three traffic cameras are pointed toward the project area and can be found on the project website – www.modot.org/central/I70LamineBridge.htm.

All drivers are encouraged to use the zipper merge technique on the approach to the work zone, which means using both lanes all the way to the merge point, then taking turns to merge into the open lane.

When motorists use both lanes of traffic until reaching the defined merge area and then alternate in “zipper” fashion into the open lane, the overall length of the traffic backup could be reduced by 40-50 percent. More information about the zipper merge can be found at http://www.modot.org/workzones/ZipperMerge.htm.

More information about the Lamine River bridges project, including other tools to help motorists navigate the work zone, can be found at www.modot.org/central/I70LamineBridge.htm.