Boone County Presiding Commissioner Dan Atwill said last week that Boone County needs a new bridge over the Missouri River at Rocheport for the sake of jobs, economic development and safety.
Atwill spoke last Tuesday at Southern Boone Primary School where he was a part of a contingent there to congratulate Ashland Police Chief Lyn Woolford on being named America’s Top Crossing Guard.
Atwill and the Boone County Commission recently approved a plan that would put $2 million of county funds towards a new bridge, part of a growing number of city, county and municipal governments who have pledged funding for a new bridge.
The Missouri Department of Transportation has said that without help on funding for a new bridge, they will be forced to make $18 million in repairs to the bridge, which would last about a decade. MoDot warns that repairing the bridge will create traffic snarls that would back up traffic on I-70 for three-to-eight hours and will be costly to Missourians.
“There are two options – doing the repair work, which they have been planning a long time, reducing traffic flow for 6-9 months,” Atwill said. “That will have a big impact on business in central Missouri. MoDot tells us there will be backups from the bridge to Columbia and perhaps all the way to Kingdom City.”
~ There’s more to the story in today’s Journal ~
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