Mike: is the boone bridge closed on highway 40 heading into st. chuck from st louis??

Dan Galvin and Linda Wilson: Sorry this is old information now. The westbound 40 Boone Bridge between St. Louis and St. Charles Counties was closed Saturday, August 15 and Sunday, August 16 for bridge inspection work. For more immediate information about road closures, you can contact MoDOT's customer service 24-7 at 1-888-ASK-MODOT or visit our website at www.modot.org

Linda Wilson

Eric: Dan & Linda,

I have a complaint about the stop light at Hanley & Manchester during the PM rush hour. I make a regularly scheduled round trip during this time and face reallllly long backups in both the eastbound and westbound directions. I wouldn't complain if this happened once, but it happens every day. I realize a lot of cars are on Hanley with the bridge back open, but they sure seem to get more than their fair share of time to get through this intersection... Manchester has a good amount of traffic too and only gets about 20 seconds to go through this intersection as compared to whatever time Hanley gets (much much more!). Any chance MoDOT can consider giving more time to us east-west travelers? Thanks for doing these chats - really appreciate your efforts so far!

Dan Galvin and Linda Wilson: I had a discussion with St. Louis County about this very thing today. They are looking at the timing at that intersection to balance the heavy demands on both Hanley and on Manchester. We'll see what they can do. It is very overloaded with traffic right now on both roads, but they are looking into it.

Linda Wilson

Jenny Haverkamp: Why did MoDOT make the decision to close the ramp at Lafayette and 44 during the I-64 project? It's added 10 minutes to many commutes that have already been increased 10 minutes or more by the I-64 project. I thought there wasn't supposed to be construction on 44 while I-64 was shut down except for emergency construction. Not applying that promise to highway ramps that funnel traffic into downtown is pretty mean.

Dan Galvin and Linda Wilson: The work on the Lafayette exit on I-44 needed to be completed now. Since we were closing just the exit only lane, it was not anticipated to result in such heavy backup on I-44. Our traffic engineers have adjusted the timing on the Jefferson exit and that has helped. The ramp is scheduled to be complete and reopened to traffic sometime next week.

Linda Wilson

jd: Thanks again for these chats. My question is regarding the Hoyt intersection on Forest Park Parkway. It seems like someone has changed the timing of the light there this week. Now in the morning (around 6:30am), the sidestreet light comes up when there are no cars there and traffic on Forest Park Parkway has to wait for about a minute while no cars are going. Can you ask them to change it back to how it was running before? Thanks

Dan Galvin and Linda Wilson: I will ask St. Louis County to look at this signal. They are responsible for that intersection.

Linda Wilson

Tom: I understand from the last couple of chats that Meridian is a City of Brentwood Street and that they are looking at a better solution for those of us that have to exit the parking garages. Do you know if they have come up with anything yet or are they going to leave it as is?

Dan Galvin and Linda Wilson: That's where the eastbound stop sign at the garage entrance/exit and the westbound stop at the crosswalk came from. They create a gap in the traffic that will allow you to get in and out. The Meridian detour is not a good route to go unfortunately, but it is the only option we have at the moment other than closing access to and from Hanley and Eager completely. That's probably the only thing that would be more unpopular. So bear with us, we'll be done as fast as we can, and until then use Brentwood to Eager to go north on I-170, and take Hanley to Clayton Road to cross I-64.

Dan