Route W is topic of open house

A meeting set up by the Missouri Department of Transportation to explain the planned on Route W was held Tuesday at the Osage Community Centre.

The meeting had an open-house format, allowing visitors to discuss their concerns with members of the project team. About eight project team members helped around 40 attendees.

The improvements on Route W will be from Lexington Avenue to the new LaSalle Avenue. The plan include resurfacing, adding a center line, adding edge line rumble strips and improving the shoulders. The project is intended to improve intersections at County Road 620 and Perryville Road as well as improve drainage structures.

To improve drainage, workers will replace the box culvert that sits three-tenths of a mile south of County Road 618. The work will require the road to be closed for about two weeks. Workers will also have to extend the box culvert located near the County Road 620 intersection on Cape LaCroix Creek, also closing the road for two weeks. The roads will not be closed at the same time.

The project is estimated to cost around $2.1 million. Bidding will open for the project starting June 26, with the project slated to start July 22 and last through December.

In order to continue mail service to people living along the construction route, a set of locked mailboxes will be made available, said Daniel Strauss, customer service manager for the Cape Girardeau post office. The boxes will be placed on a paved easement. After work moves past a resident's house, the key for a box will be passed along to a new user in the next stretch of road under construction.

"It's a post office box on the street," Strauss said.

Jacob Urhahn, who lives on Route W, said he went to the meeting to ask MoDOT officials about improving the grading. Although he said he's disappointed that grade improvement isn't in the project plans, he thinks the widening project "will be an improvement."