2022 St. Louis Regional Award Winner

I-270 North Design-Build Project Team

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MoDOT’s I-270 North Design-Build Project Team is reconstructing one of the most heavily traveled corridors in the Midwest. With over $750 million in project needs and only a third of the project budget, the Team developed an innovative approach to maximize the scope of the project through a data driven approach. The Team sought out industries best ideas to help solve the safety, congestion, and reliability challenges the I-270 North corridor had experienced.

 

Multiple advanced traffic models and safety data analysis were utilized to ensure these innovative concepts would produce excellent results once construction was completed, as well as twenty years after the project was finished. A few of the changes being made include custom designed cadillac interchanges at I-270 and Lindbergh and at I-270 and Route 367, safety driven pavement design resulting in some of the highest quality asphalt ever utilized on a MoDOT project, and pedestrian design features including higher visibility pavement markings, leading pedestrian intervals, pedestrian hawk signal, and rectangular rapid flash beacon.

 

With the continued progress, the Team experienced alarming changes to driver behavior. A significant increase in the number of distracted and aggressive drivers was being experienced in the field and through the data. The crash rate along the project area increased almost 20%, from 3.1 crashes per day to 3.7 crashes per day. To combat this alarming trend of aggressive and distracted drivers, MoDOT and project contractor MillestoneWeber reached out to law enforcement to see if additional efforts could be made to help encourage drivers as they traveled through the eight-mile work zone. A group comprised of several local and state agencies met with the Project Team and shared ideas on how to safely increase the patrol efforts. Throughout the months of May and June, the local and state enforcement partnership utilized various enforcement approaches. With this commitment, the Project Team was able to reduce the crash rate to 2.8 crashes per day in the past reporting quarter.

 

Construction is anticipated to be complete by December 2023. Additional details about the project can be found at http://www.i270north.org/.