Open Houses Give Us a Chance to Educate, Listen

Last year, MoDOT and its partners held listening sessions across the state to gather input from Missouri citizens on what they wanted from their transportation system. On the Move gave us a chance to talk to thousands of people and collect several ideas about the state’s transportation future.

Working with local and regional planning partners we have now pulled that input together into draft project lists for Moving Forward.

The project lists are in draft form and the public is weighing in on each region’s vision for Missouri’s transportation system if Amendment 7 passes.

Open Houses are being held around the state to give people a chance to review district project maps and lists to make sure we are meeting the needs and expectations of Missourians. Around 43 open houses will be held by the time the comment period ends.

MoDOT staff attends these meetings, to answer questions and fill in details so the public will know where we plan to go.

We are compiling an extensive list of comments from our customers through a variety of ways.  We hand out comment forms at the meetings.  We also steer people to our Moving Forward website so they may take time to review the lists and maps at their convenience.

After the comment period ends, the Commission and our partners will review each comment.  As of today, we have more than 600!

These comments WILL have an impact on the final project list. The public’s voice will be heard during this process. But just as we’ll never have enough money to do everything that our customers want, we won’t be able to respond or incorporate every suggestion.

For MoDOT this comment period is critical. This is our opportunity to educate the public on the state’s transportation needs but also to listen to what our customer’s think about the future of Missouri.

Assistant Chief, Kathy Harvey, Sweeps In as Guest Blogger!

I’m filling in for Ed this issue and thought I’d share my experience working on a sweeping crew in St. Louis.

The job was a few weeks ago on I-44 near downtown at night. Jerome Mitchell, assistant maintenance supervisor, was in charge of getting me where I needed to be and meeting up with the crew. 

As soon as he picked me up, he made sure I had all of the correct PPE for night work. I looked like a glow-in-the-dark skeleton, but I was definitely visible to the traffic and safety is more important than appearance.

Kevin was my driver and he did an amazing job of staying focused while answering my endless stream of questions. In the passenger seat that night, swerving around each and every grate next to the barrier wall, I wondered how I was going to keep from getting dizzy! Because the grates had not been raised when we resurfaced the roads, the person in the lead truck had to get out at each one and rake or shovel the trash, then sweep it far enough to the side that the sweeper could actually pick it up on the swerve he did around the grate, and since they are so close together, we rarely drove straight.

 We had two TMAs behind us and as I watched the traffic whiz by, I still wondered if anyone was paying attention to us.  I live outside of Jefferson City and the streets around there are empty after 9 p.m., so I was amazed at the amount of traffic on I-44 at midnight on a weeknight and shocked by the amount of trash along the barrier.  The crews can make the entire round of roads needing to be swept in about three weeks, but in that time – wow -- people throw out a lot of trash!!!    

Our crews do a fabulous job of sweeping the streets in St. Louis, and I appreciate the job they do during the hours they do it, and all with an upbeat can-do attitude.  The entire team that night was great to be with and I appreciated them letting me tag along for a few hours.