Platte City envisions Kentucky Avenue as a vital arterial roadway and continues to move forward with plans for extension in both directions.
A recent meeting between representatives of Platte City, Platte County, Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT), QuikTrip and McDonalds led to an agreement to create a four-way intersection at Highway 92 and Kentucky to help alleviate traffic congestion on Prairie View Road. At Tuesday night’s Platte City economic development sub-committee meeting, Platte City administrator DJ Gehrt received support for earmarking $2.7 million in general obligation debt to extend Kentucky all the way to Fourth Street, pending voter
approval.
“This compliments that effort (with QuikTrip and McDonalds), so all of the sudden we’ll have Kentucky all the way through from Prairie View to Fourth Street,” Gehrt said.
Gehrt said principal partners in the new entrance/exit on the back side of QuikTrip and McDonalds hope to have an agreed-upon plan out for bid in the next 90 days, an aggressive timeline at the behest of Mayor Frank Offutt.
Funds for the project would come from the city and MoDOT, while QuikTrip and McDonalds will provide assistance, although specific details still must be worked out. Platte City began pushing this proposal in earnest more than a year ago, and a recent breakthrough for how to grade the roadway helped move the project forward.
No major changes are planned to Highway 92, but modifications will be made to accommodate a fully signaled intersection from the current three-way stop.
Highway 92 would feature a right-hand turn entrance and exit on the back side of the QuikTrip/McDonalds parking lots. Kentucky Avenue would also be changed to allow cross traffic and add a left-hand turn option on the new portion of the roadway designed for tractor trailers looking for an easier exit to reach Interstate 29.
Currently, traffic bottlenecks around the two front entrances/exits, especially the left-hand turn lane off of Prairie View onto 92 which immediately gives way to the southbound I-29 entrance ramp on the right-hand side. This creates congestion with lengthy waits for a green left-hand turn signal, mostly due to tractor trailer traffic. The hope is that truckers take over majority use of the new intersection with a new logical traffic pattern to utilize while regular commuter traffic continues to use the existing entrances/exits.
However, there will be no restrictions placed on what type of vehicle uses which entrance/exit.
With approval from the Board of Alderman, a general obligation bond measure for extension of Kentucky Avenue in the opposite direction would go on the November 2014 general obligation ballot.
Read the whole story in this week's issue of The Citizen.