Highway FF Interchange Still On Commissioner’s Radar

The money may never be there and there may never be a willingness by state or federal officials to take on the project, but District 2 Commissioner Jared Boast remains committed to seeing the Highway FF overpass turned into an interchange.

The project is merely a pipe dream. It’s listed as one of the county’s transportation needs as a matter of economic development.

Boast sees it differently.

As he said Tuesday during a meeting with Missouri Department of Transportation liaison Preston Kramer, the issue is about safety.

“There’s a want and need still there,” Boast said. The matter at hand is the quarry on Highway FF. Boast explained that trucks drive through several times per day to reach Havin Material Service in Sullivan. If there was an interchange, he said they could get there quicker and create less of a hazard at the intersection of Highway FF and the South Outer Road.

Talks of converting the overpass into an interchange began in 2011 when officials from MoDOT, state, county, Bourbon and West Sullivan, along with local business owners, convened at Crawford Electric for preliminary talks.

The project would be expensive, take years to complete and would need approval from federal highway officials, MoDOT said at the time.

Discussions never seriously advanced, but Kramer said Tuesday there were “creative” designs drawn up, though unlikely to pass muster with federal officials since it involved putting a roundabout at each end of the interchange.

Boast concluded by pointing out a significant history of car accidents in that area.

“It’s something that really needs to be looked at,” he said.