The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission has awarded a couple of contracts for road improvements in southeast Missouri. Chris Crocker is MoDOT’s Southeast District Project Manager. He says the first project is for a much-traveled road in Iron County.
“The Route 21 project in Iron County, just south of Ironton, starting at around Route E, we’re going to be adding shoulders to Route 21 to the junction of Route 49,” Crocker says. “That project was awarded to HR Quadrie for approximately $4.4 million. The reason that I felt like that project is a noteworthy project to talk about is that there are five curves located in the project limits that we’re going to be improving. Four of those curves are before you get to Tip Top Park area. We’re going to widen the curves to… there’s a lot of truck traffic that uses that route and that’ll give them a little bit extra room for maybe some what we call trailer tracking and things like that and also improve the curve and improve the sight distance to those curves.”
Crocker says motorists should enjoy these improvements once complete.
“You know your everyday motorist is going to like it but also a lot of the Billman trucks and mining industry and those folks they’re definitely going to appreciate that when it’s all said and done,” he adds. “You get a lot of out-of-town tourists that go down there camping, hauling trailers and campers and things like that so it’ll be a big improvement for those folks as well. The fifth curve if you’re familiar with the Royal Gorge down in that area, basically once you get past Tip Top and come down the hill there’s a great big bluff that you come through and it’s a fairly narrow roadway through that stretch. There’s a rock wall on one side and then a big bluff on the other. This contract does include a little bit of rock removal on the bluff to allow us to put in some additional drainage features to help get the water off the roadway through that section of road.”
Crocker expects the Highway 21 project in Iron County to get started sometime in the spring. The other contract awarded is to Magruder Paving for resurfacing Highway 67 from the Jefferson County line to the Route 221 Exit in Farmington.
