The date looks firm, and four-lane traffic should fully reopen along the busiest stretch of Highway 92 in Platte City by the end of the month.
The final asphalt layer went down Monday, Oct. 10, and the remaining work on the $1.75 million road improvement project involves striping, programming the traffic signals and moving the poles for the signals to accommodate the improvements. Lane reductions and intersection closures have been going on since May and were expected to last 180 days.
Minus some brief lane closures, the new four-lane section of Highway 92 from the Prairie View/Running Horse roads intersection to west of Kentucky will reopen Tuesday, Oct. 25.
“Unless something really, really strange happens, that should be a good solid date,” Platte City city administrator DJ Gehrt said.
According to Gehrt, Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) crews will completely close the construction area from about 9 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 24 to about 4 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 25. The closure will be from just west of Prairie View/Running Horse to just west of Kentucky Avenue.
The main detour during that time will be Prairie View Road.
This closure will allow for the removal of barriers and striping the new asphalt. Once reopened, single lanes will be closed for short periods during the next three days for more lane striping and the addition of painted turn arrows, stop bars, etc.
The Prairie View/Running Horse intersection has been closed on one side or the other since early August.
At one point, work looked to be slated for completion in early October but recent heavy rains pushed the timeline back. The project duration will finish up before the contractor’s deadline of Nov. 15 with Phase III in the final stages.
An earlier project created a new four-way intersection at Kentucky Avenue, which opened in early August. At that time, the current project, which featured grading work along Highway 92, began.
The reconstruction of Highway 92 reduced a troublesome section of superelevation.
Kentucky Avenue became a new entrance point for customers of QuikTrip and McDonald’s. Because of the project, QuikTrip plans to build a new store at its current location with construction to start at a date to be determined with a projected completion by the end of 2017.
A site plan submitted to the Platte City Planning and Zoning Commission in June revealed a design that will put the new building facing toward Highway 92, replacing the current store that faces Prairie View Road. The footprint of the QuikTrip plaza will not increase, but the new layout should help better accommodate the high volume of traffic the store receives.
The Platte City location is commonly known as the company’s busiest in the Kansas City metro area, but traffic congestion along Prairie View Road might have prevented customers from accessing QuikTrip and the neighboring McDonald’s. With the new access point at Kentucky Avenue, City of Platte City officials believe traffic patterns will improve, although the adjustment could take time.
All car traffic generally flows through the store’s two entry points on Prairie View Road, but with the new building now facing west instead of east, the easier access point for general car traffic could be from the new intersection at Kentucky and Highway 92. There will be a right-hand merge lane onto and off of Kentucky Avenue at Highway 92 that will allow drivers to turn without coming to the signalized portion of the intersection.
Tractor trailers will likely continue to access the facilities from the northern edge but will now be able to exit through the Kentucky Avenue intersection, allowing more space to orient before merging back onto Interstate 29.
The scales, pumps and parking for tractor trailers will be shifted from the west to the east side. Existing structures, canopies, weigh scale, pumps and underground tanks will be removed to make way for all new facilities. The existing QuikTrip store is not expected to close at all during the estimated eight-month construction period, but final plans have not been submitted at this time.
In a third concurrent project, work continues to extend Kentucky Avenue in the opposite direction from its current terminus at Bent Oak Court to Fourth Street.
Gehrt said the joint project between the City of Platte City and the Platte County R-3 School District continues to progress. All base rock has been laid and curbs poured, meaning that work should end in the first half of November.