Construction on Sunshine |amp| 65 nears end of first phase

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The first phase of construction on Highway 65 and Sunshine is now completed, according to Missouri Depart-ment of Transportation officials.|ret||ret||tab|

Fraffic was switched from the existing northbound lanes to portions of the new bridge Jan. 9-10. |ret||ret||tab|

"This is a real milestone, because people will be able to see a difference in what's being done they'll see pro-gress," said Johnny Teegardin, resident engineer for MoDOT.|ret||ret||tab|

According to MoDOT's Web site, www.modot.state.mo.us, the bridge carries two lanes of traffic with no shoulders. The new bridge is built seven feet higher than existing bridges. North-bound drivers will see at the tops of cars on the southbound side of the highway. |ret||ret||tab|

Once the northbound Highway 65 traffic is shifted onto the median and onto the new median bridge, the northbound Highway 65 speed limit will be reduced to 40 miles per hour. Opening new parts of the bridge is the first phase of the project.|ret||ret||tab|

The second phase includes tearing down the existing northbound bridge and building one in its place. Once that's done, workers will be able to re-route the southbound traffic to where the northbound traffic used to be. This portion of the work should be completed by this summer. |ret||ret||tab|

The third phase of the project includes tearing down the existing southbound bridge and building a new southbound bridge in its place. This leg of the project should be completed by late fall or early winter 2002. |ret||ret||tab|

Phase IV of the project will be getting the traffic on Highway 65 back to a regular flow, with northbound traffic on the north side and southbound traffic on the south side, and widening Sunshine to six lanes. |ret||ret||tab|

Widening Sunshine allows for the new dual left on-ramp entry lanes. Phase Four should be finished by the end of the year.|ret||ret||tab|

According to MoDOT's Web site, the new interchange at Highway 65 and Sun-shine is called a Single Point Urban In-terchange. This type of interchange was first introduced in Florida about 25 years ago. The interchange at Highway 65 and Sunshine is just like an interchange at 141 and Manchester Road in St. Louis.|ret||ret||tab|

There will be one bank of signal lights under the new Highway 65 bridge to govern all the traffic flow on Sunshine, as well as traffic moving on to and off Highway 65.|ret||ret||tab|

Burt Pitchford, area engineer for Mo-DOT, said people have been supportive of the project.|ret||ret||tab|

"We've kept two lanes on Highway 65 open 99 percent of the time, so that has helped a lot," he said.|ret||ret||tab|

APAC Central of Columbia is the contractor for the project, which uses several subcontractors.|ret||ret||tab|

The work at Sunshine and Highway 65 began March 1, 2001. The project, which is being paid for by federal, state and city monies, is expected to cost $15 million.|ret||ret||tab|

Work on Sunshine and Highway 65 is approximately two months behind, Pitchford said, because "we had a really wet summer. The dirt was too wet to work with. So, we had to wait for it to dry out."|ret||ret||tab|

Teegardin said it's important for drivers to obey the speed limit, especially around a highway construction area.|ret||ret||tab|

"People need to stay safe," he said, "It takes time to make things better."[[In-content Ad]]