$29 million road (a)head for Grandview
By Casey Lyons in News
Wed., Jul. 29 2009 @ 10:53AM
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MoDot officials say the "diverging diamond" configuration is suited to handle additional car traffic, which will result from additional industrial development in the area, including about 2,100 new employees at the NNSA/Honeywell facility that produces non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons systems.
Last night's public hearing in Grandview drew a tiny crowd; with only 30 minutes left, the court reporter had only entered two statements into the public record, both of which came from the no nukes set.
"I am concerned about pollution from the old and proposed sites, concerned about the danger to the plant's near and far neighbors because the plant is a prime target for terrorist, and concerned about beefing up nuclear weapons at a time when the world must instead be abolishing these weapons," said Jane Stoever, of Overland Park, Kansas.
MoDot officials said no special design considerations were made for hazardous materials transport because the NNS/Honeywell site is not expected to handle radioactive stuff.
"There's more hazardous or specialty material going through 71 Highway or the Triangle than here," said Steve Porter, spokesman for MoDot.
If approved as designed (the public comment period ends August 11), the road will handle approximately 50,000 daily car trips on MO-150 (up from 17,000 today) and 12,000 on Botts Road (up from about 2,000), said Lideana Laboy, an engineer with HTNB. There's also some bike/pedestrian paths should that ever catch on. Construction would commence in the spring of 2010 and conclude by late 2011, if all goes according to plan.
As proposed, the interchange allows truck traffic -- which will make up about 10 percent of total traffic, according to MoDot officials -- to get up to speed quickly and merge into higher speed travel lanes.
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