- Bridge replacements on MO Route 79 between Foley and Elsberry
- News Release
- View displays and submit comments
MoDOT's Northeast District held a public meeting at City Hall in Foley, MO on Tuesday, January 19 from 4:30 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. to invite the public to share comments about upcoming work on two bridges between Foley and Elsberry: the bridge over Lost Creek just north of Foley, and the bridge over Sandy Creek on the south side of Elsberry. Both bridges are located on MO 79. These historic bridges were scheduled to be replaced during the construction season of 2011, but have been rescheduled to the 2013 and 2014 construction seasons.
In addition to the traditional, open house public meeting, MoDOT offered a virtual meeting through its website.
At the public meeting, 23 comments were turned in on paper. To date, we have received five comments from the web page, including one from Rep. Ed Schieffer.
There were 53 people in attendance at the public meeting in Foley. These included residents and officials from the City of Foley, Elsberry, and Clarksville.
On the comment form provided both at the meeting and online, we asked if the resident had a preference of either closing both bridges at the same time, or closing them separately at different times of the year (these were check boxes).
7 people checked "both"
10 people checked "separate"
7 people did not check a box or wrote "neither" out to the side
A summation of the comment forms:
13 suggested a temporary bridge at either or both locations, replacing the bridges separately
2 specifically cited emergency access issues (both suggested temporary bridges, though the emergency responders themselves verbally requested the bridges not be closed simultaneously)
13 specifically cited devastation to the economy, businesses and personal, in the area if the bridges were closed during construction
Other issues included maintenance of detour routes and the amount of traffic that would be using other routes.
