Most people have driven at least one stretch of Missouri’s Interstate 70. It’s the long, flat road that goes from the suburbs of Kansas City to the edges of St. Louis, passing through Columbia, Kingdom City, and a dozen other smaller towns. For years, that drive had a steady beat: construction cones, bumpy roads, and lane narrowings that make you grip the wheel a little tighter than usual. Most drivers might have thought things would always be this way.
They’re not going to be. The Missouri Department of Transportation doesn’t think so. It will cost $2.8 billion for MoDOT to add a third lane in each direction to nearly 200 miles of highway between Blue Springs and Wentzville.
This is one of the biggest infrastructure projects going on in the Midwest right now. There are five contracts going on right now. Every day, about 600 workers are out there, and the program’s director, Eric Kopinski, says that every day about two million dollars worth of construction work is done. You can’t really picture that number until you’re right next to a work zone and watch crews move with a focused efficiency that doesn’t leave much room for small talk.
After a short break over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, the project started up again this week. Drivers who have been back on the corridor have already noticed changes. An old interchange and roundabout that had been in Kingdom City for decades have been replaced with new ones. Kopinski has said that some drivers will need to try out the new layout a few times before it feels natural. That’s an honest and fair thing to say. A lot of Americans are still scared of roundabouts, even though they are safe to use.
What’s interesting about this project’s size is how long it took to get here. When I-70 was built, there wasn’t as much traffic on it as there is now. It would have been unimaginable back then that Missouri would have to handle the amount of commercial and passenger traffic it does every day. Over the years, parts of the highway have been fixed up and made wider, but an expansion this big along the whole corridor hadn’t happened in a long time. Anyone who drives this route often will tell you that the overhaul is long overdue.
The next big deal is already being worked on. Contractors are vying for a $583 million contract to work on the 43-mile stretch between Kingdom City and Warrenton. This area sees a lot of freight traffic because it is between two major metro areas. MoDOT plans to award that contract in November, and work could begin in the spring of 2027. When you think about how quickly goals have grown, this would be one of the biggest contracts the department has ever given out.
Missouri approved a $13 billion plan earlier this month to improve transportation across the whole state, not just I-70. The plan covers the fiscal years 2027–2031. The plan sets aside $9.3 billion to pay for building contracts for roads and bridges across the state’s more than 33,000 miles of highways and thousands of bridges. This is a big change in both resources and political will for a state that has had trouble in the past funding infrastructure at the rate its road network needs it.
Kopinski has said that the goal is to finish the corridor by 2030 in a way that doesn’t mean workers will have to fix things again in two years. That promise is important. Anyone who has seen a newly paved road get worse in just a few seasons knows the difference between a real fix and a quick one. Still, it’s not clear if MoDOT will be able to deliver on that long-term durability, but at least the goal seems real. You can’t help but notice that the plans seem a little more stable this time.
