By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Missouri Department of Transportation officials have released roadwork projects they hope to complete over the next five years.
The latest Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan, or STIP, has projects for 2023 through 2027.
Northwest District Engineer Marty Liles says the plan highlights all the work MoDOT sends out to contract with its contracting agencies.
"We let these projects, the money that would go out on projects to do roadway improvements, which may be anything from resurfacing type improvements on our highways to actually doing improvements on our bridges," Liles tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Liles says in this region most of the projects have to do with road resurfacing
"Asphalt type of things, getting roadway surface improvements, and taking care of a lot of our poor condition bridges," Liles explains. "Whether that's with improvements with a re-deck or actually rehabilitating that bridge, removing it, and building a brand new one."
A chance for the public to voice their opinions on how state money should be spent on the state's roads and bridges is currently ongoing.
Liles says the comments from the public help make an impact on how the department spends the money
"We'll take those comments based on what they are and we'll make decisions based off the information that we got," he says.
But Liles also assures the public that all these plans have been well thought out.
"This draft STIP that we came up with, we did that in cooperation with our regional planning partners across the state, in this place we have five of them within our region," Liles says. "And each one of those planning partners have transportation advisory committee councils on there, they are a lot of the public voice that comes in and provides us with that input.
The public comment period runs through June 17th. You can view all the STIP projects HERE.