About 50,000 motorists who now travel Hanley Road will get something of a holiday stocking stuffer when the eastern half of Highway 40 closes Dec. 15.

That's because the popular thoroughfare will stay open until after Christmas.

When the major north-south vein does close for demolition on Dec. 29, it will force drivers to look for other options — including Laclede Station Road, and Brentwood and Big Bend boulevards — for up to eight months.

One major detour will take northbound Hanley traffic onto westbound Eager Road, then to Interstate 170 or Brentwood Boulevard. Traffic lights at the notoriously traffic-choked intersection of Hanley and Eager will go away, so motorists can travel that route without stopping.

"We actually think it will flow better than Hanley and Eager flow now," said Linda Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Transportation. "The problem is you can't go across the highway."

By the time this stretch of Highway 40 (Interstate 64) reopens, Hanley along with Brentwood Boulevard will make up one large interchange moving traffic on and off the busy highway.

Kirsten Blase lives in the Hanley Downs neighborhood just north of Highway 40. Blase said she takes the Hanley bridge to drop her daughter off at Mark Twain Elementary School across the highway in Brentwood. Her son goes to preschool in Brentwood, too.

"It's not going to be a huge hassle for us," Blase said. "I think it will take a little getting used to, not making a right to go everywhere. Because I shop at Dierbergs. My kids go to school over there.

"It's all a matter of just changing my route."

Blase, whose family has lived at Hanley and Highway 40 since 2001, said she was looking forward to the highway project's reaching the finish line within the next year or so. Her house sits behind a gray soundwall.

The Hanley-Eager intersection will be part of the face-lift, too. Situated just south of Highway 40, the intersection is "as bad as it gets" for traffic jams, said Garry Earls, St. Louis County's chief operating officer.

The county and the Missouri Department of Transportation announced in July an agreement to add the irritating intersection to the Highway 40 project. Wilson said the work was expected to begin after the Hanley Road bridge reopened and should take about three months.

It will be rebuilt in a "jug handle" configuration, eliminating left turns to and from Eager. Instead, motorists traveling north on Hanley will get to westbound Eager by using a loop that goes beneath Hanley. People driving south on Hanley will have to go west on Dale Avenue to get to Eager.

The county will pay Gateway Constructors $6 million to rebuild the Hanley-Eager intersection.

While the bridge is being rebuilt, northbound Hanley traffic will turn directly onto westbound Eager Road. The project is expected to take up to eight months to complete.

If it reduces traffic tie-ups at Hanley and Eager, it will be welcome news to people who regularly drive in that area.

Donald Stump of St. Louis said more people might shop in the Brentwood area if it weren't for the congested intersection.

Before walking into the Target Greatland in Brentwood, he said he agreed that Eager-Hanley was one of the worst intersections around.

"It's a mess," said Andy Haverman, who works at the Target. "It's always been a mess, though."

kleiser@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8215