City plan outlines Stadium improvements

The improvements include a diverging diamond on Stadium and I-70.

By Ethan Simonds

Published April 16, 2010

An almost $20 million construction project would add lanes to Stadium Boulevard and use a new diverging-diamond highway interchange.

"The main goal of the project is capacity improvements to the whole corridor," said Rick Walker, engineer at Cook, Flatt and Strobel, the firm assisting in planning and design drawings for the project. "It will cost about $19.9 million, so it's a big project," Walker said. "But it should do a lot to improve traffic flow."

On Wednesday, Columbia's Public Works Department held a meeting at the Activity and Recreation Center to get citizen feedback on the plan.

Matt Myers, Missouri Department of Transportation district traffic engineer, said the construction would eventually involve most of Stadium.

"We're going to completely rebuild Stadium from Broadway to I-70," Myers said. "The intersections along Stadium can't handle their current volume of traffic, so we're adding lanes to keep the signal time down."

Myers said the improvements should last well into the future.

"We're using a 20 year horizon for this project because Stadium will still be the main way into Columbia even 20 years in the future," he said.

The increasing traffic in Columbia prompted these changes, Myers said.

"The side streets are demanding more time than before because there's more traffic," he said. "We're adding dual left turn lanes and more right turn lanes to keep the groups as small as possible at those intersections."

He said the project would occur in four parts. The first phase, construction around Stadium and Broadway, could start as early as this summer. The next three, which Myers said are the most important, will begin in 2011, 2012 and 2013, respectively.

The last phase, one of the biggest of the project, will be the overhaul of the Stadium and I-70 interchange.

The interchange will use a new design called a diverging diamond, Walker said. In this pattern, the left and right lanes cross over each other and switch places. This improvement, one of the first of its kind, will reduce delays and shorten light cycles, he said.

"It's not the first intersection like that, but it will certainly be one of the first six or seven installed in America," Myers said.

MoDOT engineer David Johns, said all the improvements will make it safer for drivers.

"One of the purposes of this construction is to eliminate a lot of the contact points at intersections where accidents happen," he said. "We'll increase the capacity of the side streets off Stadium by adding left turn lanes."

Joe Alder, a Columbia property owner, said the project doesn't do enough to ensure pedestrian safety.

"There are several intersections that don't have street lights at all right now," Alder said. "This makes it dangerous for pedestrians and stopped cars at night."

Alder said provisions for pedestrians aren't enough.

"The current crossing time at crosswalks is seven seconds, which is the state required minimum," he said. "For many pedestrians, especially handicapped ones, this is not long enough."

Alder said MoDOT is taking a step in the right direction with this meeting.

"These kind of meetings involving availability for civilian input show they are starting to care more about taxpayer concerns and interests," he said.