Bonnie Prigge and Anne Freand, representatives of the Meramec Regional Planning Commission (MRPC), and MoDOT area engineer Preston Kramer discussed and updated the county’s transportation needs list on Oct. 27 with the commissioners.

Prigge asked that the commissioners pick their top road and bridge projects that they would consider high-priority, unfunded needs. Those will go to the regional Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC) meeting on Dec. 10 for prioritization along with the other seven MRPC counties’ priority transportation projects.

“Then with that list, goes to the MRPC board, and then we work with that list with MoDOT to see, as funds are available, what might be able to be brought into the statewide transportation plan that just gets updated or added to each year,” Prigge said.

Turning the floor over to Kramer, he said that Missouri has the seventh largest transportation system in the country, but ranks 47th in funding.

“That’s not third from the top, that’s third from the bottom. That presents a lot of challenges, but it makes the prioritization process that much more important,” Kramer said. “These items on this list was added by folks in this room or your predecessors, sometimes from the general public, and across the eight counties these lists amount to about $8 billion in unfunded transportation needs, just across our eight counties.”

Kramer went through the 19 projects that were on the priority list and recommended that all of them stay on it. He did make a recommendation to add one priority to the list.

“The most recent safety inspections found that the Route UU…bridge over (Interstate) 44 just dropped to a 4-4-5,” Kramer said.

During bridge inspections, bridges are rated on a scale from zero to nine on three elements: deck, superstructure and substructure.

The deck is the surface that vehicles drive on and the structure directly beneath it. Superstructure refers to the load-bearing components of a bridge, including the deck slab, girders and trusses. Substructure includes piers, abutments and foundations that support the superstructure and transfer loads from the superstructure to the ground.

A rating of seven and above is considered good, five or six is fair and four and below is poor.

Layman also mentioned Highway DD due to the number of semi trucks going down because drivers think it has access to Interstate 44.

“There is not a day that goes by that we don’t have multiple trucks go down there and try to turn around on Old Springfield Road or continue down DD and come off on Evans Road and back onto 19. And I don’t know. I’m not an engineer, but those bridges won’t sustain a lot of weight. There’s no turnarounds,” Layman said. “With that curve there on DD coming around past Old Springfield Road, my fear is that someone’s going to come around that corner when a truck’s trying to turn around.”

This issue was brought before the commission before on July 28 by resident Kenny Staples.

Layman added that there is a sign that says the road doesn’t have access to Interstate 44, but it’s small.

District 2 Commissioner Jared Boast said that they have been working with the Cuba Mayor Pitts Lesesne to try to find a solution to the problem.

Each year the commissioners go through the list and select which projects are a priority for the county. After reviewing the list, they decided to keep their top four previously selected priorities, which are putting a left-turn lane to turn onto Lindburg Road, making a better line of sight at the intersection of Glassy and Heyer Roads, making safety improvements to the bridge over Cherry Valley Branch and converting the overpass at the junction of Route FF to an interchange for economic development and safety.

They also reviewed the multimodal transportation needs list, which includes modes for airport, bike and pedestrian, rail and transit.

Prigge explained that these transit modes have a separate funding pot from road and bridge, except for bike and pedestrian.

“These different modes also have, do their prioritization a little differently. They are done at the statewide level, but we always like to make sure we have these on our list,” Prigge said.

When looking at transit, Freand said that the first thing on every county’s list is increasing rural transportation. Southeast Missouri Transportation Service, Inc. (SMTS) is the current provider for Crawford County, but SMTS added that they need more busses to the list.

Boast asked more about how SMTS worked. Prigge said that anyone can ride with SMTS, and Freand added that it is not specifically for medical use.

“Their funding limits what they can do as far as promoting their programs, which is ironic because you know you don’t get people to use the service unless you can tell people about it, but they are limited in what they can do,” Prigge said.

She added that those who want to use the service need to call 24 hours in advance in case SMTS needs to accommodate a rider, because only some of the buses are set up to carry wheelchairs.

Freand said it would be nice if organizations like SMTS were allowed to do some more advertising so it could help pay for their needs instead of having to rely on federal highway and road grants.

When discussing the bike and pedestrian category, since it is larger than the other three modes that have only one or two projects, Freand asked that the commissioners pick their top needs that can be focused on when prioritizing all eight of MRPC’s counties’ needs.

Boast said that they should probably prioritize adding safety improvements for pedestrian access to the hospital and senior center at the intersection of Highway D and Sappington Bridge Road since it is also on the road and bridge list and deals with the hospital, fairgrounds and nursing home.

“I guarantee you, if you were able to do a pedestrian or bike traffic count, that would be probably the highest one on this list because there’s a ton of people that is connecting with one side of Sullivan to the other right there,” Boast said.

Prigge recommended that they go through the list and pick the highest priority in each community.

Boast said that they should probably focus on increasing pedestrian and bicyclist opportunities along Old Route 66 and install shoulders where they are not already present for Cuba.

“I know it’s a big one, but that KK and ZZ, that shoulder and that road has got that curve in there, and it would be…there’s nice flat area on the side of the road, so it would…be an expense, but it wouldn’t be like you would have to construct miles and miles of, from nothing,” Boast said.

Presiding Commissioner Steve Black agreed because he said that over the past 10 to 15 years, many bike riders have been struck there.

Pfeiffer was unable to be present to speak on behalf of Steelville, but Steelville Mayor Jason Ward said that they should probably focus on making Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and pedestrian improvements from the school campus to Spring Street.

For Bourbon, Boast agreed with Freand’s suggestion of prioritizing adding a sidewalk to connect downtown Bourbon to the school.