Highway 40 Closing, Part 2

If the weather permits, state transportation officials will begin closing the eastern end of the Highway 40/I-64 construction project on Sunday, December 14.

City government is ready.

To be ready for Monday morning drive time, the City has invested nearly $52 million over the past several years to improve alternate roads, to hire and train new traffic maintenance personnel, and to make some major changes to how we control traffic.

More than 60 percent of the City’s intersections are now connected to a computer system that allows signal and timing changes to be made remotely to reduce congestion and improve traffic flow. Twenty cameras have installed to monitor traffic flow. And more than 2,000 sensors have been installed to let managers know when cars are waiting for green lights.

Fourteen sections along the highest priority traffic routes have been resurfaced. New turn lanes/lights and lane striping have been added along many of those routes; and some medians have been removed.

Almost 250 uniformed City Streets Department workers, roughly half the entire traffic maintenance staff, will be out each day repairing, towing, adjusting, patching, and re-striping along priority routes to keep traffic moving smoothly. Message boards will keep motorists informed of changes, accidents, and jams.

The two northbound lanes of the Jefferson Avenue Bridge will open on Monday morning. And City, MoDOT, and St. Louis county traffic officials will be staffing a joint Incident Command Center.

We are prepared for the closing, but we can’t control everything. Your own actions will make this closure less — or more — difficult. Learn new routes, vary your travel hours, observe parking regulations, and — if you can — use public transportation. Be patient.

UPDATE: The weather did not permit. The closure will now begin on Saturday, December 13.