Stakeholders seek feedback on 60/65 corridor study

A wide swath of highways 60 and 65 is the focus of a corridor study that kicked off at a public meeting yesterday.

Officials gathered at The Courageous Church's south campus to lay out the initial goals of the study. The Ozarks Transportation Organization is partnering with the Missouri Department of Transportation, Greene County, the city of Springfield, City Utilities of Springfield and the Federal Highway Administration on a planning and environmental linkages study designed to support and advance planning and decision-making for the corridor.

Steve Prange is the project manager for the 60/65 project and senior vice president and director of business development and strategy at Crawford, Murphy & Tilly Inc., which has been hired as the consultant for the corridor study. The study's cost is $815,485, with the price tag not to exceed $1 million,said Sara Fields, OTO’s executive director.

With the 60/65 interchange as the central point, Prange showed a map of the highway points that make up the corridor study area. Its boundaries comprise Battlefield Road to the north, Route 125 in Rogersville to the east, Evans Road to the south and Glenstone Avenue to the west.

"The study area is big for a reason," Prange said, noting the transportation areas "all work together."

Prange said the use of a planning and environmental linkages study is strategic.

"It bridges the gap between long-range planning and a future project," he said, noting the PEL also could set the stage for federal funding in the future.

Prange noted that the study is currently a "clean slate" and that feedback would be used to determine alternatives for the transportation network.

"When you put this layer of future growth and economic impact to businesses and residents, that's a whole other perspective," he said. "That's a big reason why you're here tonight, to give us that perspective, what's happening, what's growing, what sort of capacity issues might we face in the future."

A summer meeting is slated to deliver a baseline conditions report, followed by a public feedback session in the fall, public review of reasonable alternatives in the winter and the study's completion in spring 2027, officials say. 

Members of the public may share feedback on the plan on the OTO website. 

"Whatever solution we do come up with, we don't want it be a short-term solution," Prange said. "We want something that can live on for a long time."

Fields said the study would be complicated due to its scope.

"We don't think it'll be an easy solution," she said.

The 60/65 corridor is central to the Lake Springfield economic development initiative, as well as a project identified by MoDOT to remove certain access points along Highway 60, according to past reporting. One of those access points lead to The Courageous Church's south campus, the venue for yesterday's meeting. 

The removal of access points has been highlighted by business leaders who say they would be adversely impacted if the plans come to fruition. MoDOT has pointed to safety issues along Highway 60.

Business leaders have suggested a “dogbone” style interchange as one possible alternative.