ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MO.- Road construction season is here, and millions of dollars in projects are underway in St. Louis County, but other work is canceled.
Just under I-270 near Westport Plaza is where Westport Plaza Drive turns into Marine Avenue. It’s one of the multi-million dollar road construction projects taking place in St. Louis County. County Executive Sam Page will highlight this and other projects later Wednesday morning.
Page’s Chief Spokesperson Doug Moore told FOX 2 county officials are currently managing $42.7 million in road and bridge improvement projects. However, Moore also said that over $26.5 million in infrastructure programs have been canceled in the county’s five-year plan.
County Executive Page shared that the county simply doesn’t have enough money to do all the projects because of issues like rising costs due to inflation and supply chain disruptions from the pandemic.
We’re told that county crews do plan to fill about 15,000 potholes this season.
The $4. 7 million project includes road resurfacing, curb replacements, and signal upgrades.
Outside the work there, Page spoke about the Allen Road Bridge replacement in west county, work on Bayless Avenue in south county, resurfacing a stretch of Midland Boulevard, along with work on McKelvey Road and Lackland Road.
“There are two fundamental challenges in getting our roads fixed,” Page explained. “One is a structural deficit and the lack of funds – we don’t have enough money to fix all the roads that we’d like to because of the limited funds we have in St. Louis County to spend on roads. The second big challenge is that the costs have escalated dramatically beyond what we had expected. And that’s a challenge that everyone in the region and everyone in the country is facing.”
Page also spoke about a budget working group made up of county leaders who review budget issues in the county. It’s understood that he may detail town hall meetings coming up in June where residents can give input to county leaders about what they think is important in St. Louis County as well.
