JEFFERSON COUNTY, Mo. – Early next year, MODOT is planning to break ground on a near $250 million project.
The Interstate 55 Corridor Upgrades project will add a northbound and southbound lane in Jefferson County from Festus to Pevely.
“Anyone who drives on Interstate-55 in Jefferson County should care about this project,” Justin Wolf, the I-55 project director, said. “Even people that live further south in Farmington and Park Hills. Anyone who travels this corridor should care about this.”
The lane upgrades will stretch eight miles from the Route Z interchange in Festus to the US 67 in Pevely. MoDOT will also be replacing 14 bridges and fixing 12 more during the three-year construction timeline.
“Hopefully it will alleviate a lot of ,” area resident Brett Herzog said.
Herzog and about 200 others attended a MoDOT meeting on the project in Festus on Thursday night.
“It doesn’t affect me too much,” Herzog admitted. “But I hear the stories from my wife, and it really did bottleneck at Route Z real bad.”
More than 70,000 drivers use the interstate every day, with 15 percent of those vehicles being heavy trucks.
MoDOT expects to begin construction in January or February with a 2026 construction completion date expected.
