by Ivan Foley
Landmark editor
While potential developers of a controversial proposed high density housing project are touting it as a significant factor that should be considered in their favor (see related article), Missouri Department of Transportation officials don’t seem to be making nearly as much out of the situation.
The “situation” is that improvements to Hwy. 92 from the state line to Smithville--which would include the area that serves the potential Lake at Tomahawke Ridge development of 657 homes on 300 acres at Hwy. 92 and North Winan Road--made a regional list of four priority projects on a 10 to 20 year plan for MoDOT.
“It’s not really breaking news,” Hope Visconti, transportation planning coordinator for the MoDOT district office in Lee’s Summit, told The Landmark in a phone interview on Tuesday.
“We are basically developing a list of what our highest priorities are,” she explained. She said referring to it as a “wish list” would be a good way to qualify the matter.
Visconti emphasized that there is “no funding available for any of these projects right now.”
“We’re going through an initiative here at MoDOT,” she said.
She explained it’s a two prong initiative: The first part is to identify and prioritize potential major projects, and then to begin working internally to start designing potential projects over the next few years.
“At this point there is no money for anything. We’ll start working internally on design to hopefully be prepared if and when additional money does come to Missouri for transportation improvements,” Visconti explained.
While improvements to Hwy. 92 ranked as the highest scoring project in Platte County, it ranked only as the fourth highest in the region. Other projects placed ahead of Hwy. 92 on the list of top four priorities for the region are:
1. Further improvements at the I-70 and I-435 interchange in Jackson County near the sports complex. “It’s the region’s top priority due to the amount of congestion that interstate has,” Visconti said.
2. I-435 from 48th St. to the Missouri River, which has congestion due to the Hwy. 210 interchange.
3. U.S. 71 from 155 St. to North Cass Parkway.
After those three projects comes Hwy. 92 from Leavenworth (Missouri state line) to Smithville.
Visconti said the plan for Hwy. 92 would be for four lanes from the state line to I-29.
Preliminary plans for Hwy. 92 east of I-29, which is where Tomahawke Ridge would be developed, would be for a three lane section featuring wider shoulders.
“It would be something to help with turning movements along the route,” Visconti said.
She explained that a lot of Hwy. 92 traffic gets off at Hwy. 45 and heads south. For instance, Hwy. 92 west of Hwy. 45 sees 15,000 vehicles per day, while the portion of Hwy. 92 east of Hwy. 45 gets only 7,000 vehicles per day by comparison.
“This is a 10-year plan. If it’s something we don’t receive additional funds for, it could stretch into a 20-year plan,” she added.
“Again, there is no money at this point in time,” she emphasized.
Visconti said preliminary estimates call for the Hwy. 92 proposed improvements to carry a price tag of $55 million in today’s dollars. She said with inflation factored in, that cost is estimated to be $63 million.
Federal stimulus money received by the state allowed MoDOT to “kinda clean off our shelf, so to say,” and complete some other projects, Visconti explained.
“When we make major decisions about projects, we work with our planning partners, which in this case is MARC (the Mid America Regional Council, a consortium of cities and counties),” she said. The MARC planning group developed the four-point list of priority projects for the region noted above.
Asked if she thinks the Hwy. 92 project will ever come to fruition, Visconti said:
“I don’t know. I think everyone in the state realizes the need for transportation improvements. But I’m not sure where it’s going to fall in the priority of the taxpayers with the economy the way it is.
“There has been some talk statewide from a lot of different groups about increasing the amount of funding that we put to transportation, but we’re not sure anything will happen,” she told The Landmark.
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