View I-70 Downtown Closure - Oct. 6-12 2011 in a larger map
A map of the closure area can be seen above.
Heading to the Roger Daltry concert at the Peabody or the Blues' opening game this weekend? Or were you thinking of cruising around downtown for any other reason from Oct. 6-12? Well, if your travel plans include using Interstate 70 between 10th St. and the Poplar Street Bridge, we offer the friendly suggestion to find an alternate route.
- The Missouri Department of Transportation will be closing "all lanes of Interstate 70 between 10th Street and the Poplar Street Bridge starting at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7 to remove the Howard and 9th Street bridge over the interstate.
- The ramps between the Poplar Street Bridge and Memorial Drive as well as the ramps between the Poplar Street Bridge and I-70 will be closed during this work.
- The closures are not scheduled to drift into Monday morning commutes, however. MoDOT said All lanes will reopen before 5 a.m. Monday, Oct. 10.
MoDOT suggests using Interstates 64 and 170 as alternate routes around the closure. They also add that "there will be a detour for local traffic, but it will require driving on nearly two miles of city streets and about a dozen traffic signals."
MoDot engineer Greg Horn says the detour will involve about two miles of city streets and a dozen traffic signals, so drivers should simply avoid I-70 completely, if possible.
"We’ve actually done this twice before and if people will heed the warning and stay off of 70 it really won’t be too bad. We’ve had maybe 15 minute backups. But you can imagine if all 70 traffic – we have about 90,000 cars a day that use 70 – if they try to use this detour through the city streets, you’ll have major problems," Horn said.
The ramp from eastbound I-70 to 10th St. will be permanently closed as part of construction for the new Mississippi River Bridge.