The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization on Wednesday approved a change to the pedestrian facilities part of its transportation improvement program.
The multi-jurisdiction organization approved a more than $21 million increase to the project during its meeting Wednesday, an amendment made to align with Missouri Department of Transportation plans.
Originally, $3,135,000 was budgeted to go toward upgrading pedestrian facilities “to comply with the ADA Transition Plan at various locations in the central district.”
The project is now budgeted at $24,257,000.
CAMPO Planner Lee Bowden said it is a MoDOT project scheduled to start this year and be completed in 2022.
Not all of that funding goes into Jefferson City, Bowden said. The project includes MoDOT’s Central and Northwest districts, with several locations within the CAMPO region included in the plan.
The CAMPO Metropolitan Planning Area includes Jefferson City, Holts Summit, St. Martins, Taos, Wardsville, and portions of unincorporated Cole and Callaway counties.
“We didn’t get an actual specific location that they are trying to upgrade,” Bowden said.
Bob Lynch, MoDOT area engineer for the Central District and Cole County, said the project was originally broken down by the different counties that are part of the project. However, it is now being combined to be considered one project.
“We had it broken out into a bunch of individual projects,” Lynch said. “We’re combining them all into one to try to provide better value for the project. That’s what design build is about, lumping things together into one project to make a better product.”
Since part of the project is within CAMPO’s coverage area, it needed to update its plan to reflect this change, Lynch said.
MoDOT is required by federal law to update sidewalks and crosswalks to meet the current standards in the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is the focus of the project, Lynch explained.
Roughly 80 percent of the project is funded through the Surface Transportation Block Grant Program from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The other 20 percent will use MoDOT funds.
CAMPO puts out a transportation improvement program regularly, which includes federally funded projects planned for the coming years.
MoDOT also releases a statewide transportation improvement program, which does the same thing at a statewide level.