County Commission Sets Transportation Priority List

Crawford County commissioners in November set their transportation priority list.

Commissioners left their top priorities intact from last year, going with Lindburg Road as the most important, an interchange at Highway FF as No. 2 and a bridge on Cherry Valley Branch Road as No. 3.

The list was taken to the Transportation Advisory Committee in December to voted on by representing counties in the Meramec Regional Planning Commission.

From there, the projects are submitted to the Missouri Department of Transportation for inclusion in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan.

The county has had success getting projects through TAC and into the STIP.

Lindburg Road, located on Highway 19 between Cuba and Steelville, is considered a dangerous intersection.

The need for a left turn lane exists, with most of the accidents a result of drivers going in that direction.

Commissioners have considered it one of their top priorities for the past few years.

In 2020, commissioners moved the addition of an interchange at Highway FF as a priority.

The interchange has always been on the county’s list, but never took priority.

District 2 Commissioner Jared Boast has been pushing for the interchange since he came into office in 2017. 

In 2021, Preston Kramer, a Missouri Department of Transportation engineer and liaison for Crawford County, said the interchange would be a good cost share between the state, county and village of West Sullivan.

However, Kramer said then he didn’t think MoDOT would contribute anything beyond 50 percent.

The Highway FF interchange has been talked about for more than a decade.

In March 2011, various business owners and stakeholders in that immediate area met at Crawford Electric to discuss how the project would unfold.

The project was pegged at more than $10 million and would take the acquisition of several properties.

The price has likely gone up in the last 12 years.

While Kramer has told commissioners that MoDOT considers economic development, Boast has for years insisted that it’s a matter of safety. He has cited trucks driving on the outer roads from the quarry on Highway FF and the intersection at the South Outer Road.