Construction to begin on U.S. 63/I-70 connector Wednesday | Mid-Missouri News | komu.com

The $405 million project is a part of a four phase plan expecting to wrap up by 2027.

The Missouri Department of Transportation has pushed back the start of construction and traffic shift at the Interstate 70-U.S. 63 connector to Wednesday.

The shift was originally set for Monday.

The construction of two new bridges in Columbia near the I-70 and U.S. 63 interchange is the first step in MoDOT's Improve I-70 project and will take roughly 10 months to complete.

Traffic between the Broadway overpass and the Conley Road underpass on the northeast end of Columbia will eliminate several lanes of traffic until the bridges are done. This means all U.S. 63 traffic will be pushed to the northbound lanes with traffic control devices separating northbound and southbound traffic. Both lanes of traffic will be narrowed to 10 feet and given a reduced speed limit. All enter and exit ramps will still be available but have different traffic patterns.

This is a map representing how traffic will be shifting on Route 63 during construction. The red part represents the portion of the northbound lane that will be closed, and the green is the southbound lane where traffic will be redirected to.

Construction crews will begin building the southbound bridge first. Once the bridge is complete, traffic will flip to the new southbound bridge until the northbound side is completed. The westbound exit to Business Loop will also be removed before the end of the year.

Jeff Gander, the director for the first phase of the project, cites aging infrastructure, capacity for vehicles and incident management as the reasons for the project.

Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.

Error! There was an error processing your request.

Have the latest local news delivered every morning to start your day informed.

"If you've driven over I-70, you'll realize that it's been there a long time," Gander said. "A lot of it was built in the '60s , so it's starting to show its age a lot."

The goal of the I-70 program is to add a third lane to I-70 between Blue Springs and Wentzville. The project received $2.8 billion from Gov. Mike Parson and broke ground in June. The construction will happen in four phases: Columbia to Kingdom City, west of St. Charles Road to Cedar Creek, Cedar Creek to west of Route M, and west of Route to the U.S. Route 54 interchange.

"Our design philosophy in everything we did was trying to take as much traffic out of there as possible, but make it function better," Gander said.

Construction began in July 2024 in rural areas like Missouri routes 137 and 144. The full project is expected to end by 2027. Increased traffic is expected, but Gander hopes to minimize this and encourages people to adhere to speed limits and drive with caution.

"If we can just get drivers to slow down and put their phones down, it would help us out a lot," Gander said.

To find more graphics and information about the Improve I-70 project from Columbia to Kingdom City, visit https://www.modot.org/improvei70/columbiakingdomcity.

This story was updated Friday morning after the Missouri Department of Transportation pushed back the start of construction.

To report an error or typo, email [email protected].

The Improve I-70 Project includes adding a third lane in each direction on more than 200 miles of the interstate.

Currently in Columbia