ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. – St. Charles County residents complained about bad conditions on Route N in the area.
They said the road is breaking up in places on a 5.5-mile stretch of Route N from Highway Z to Sommers Road. It’s a well-traveled road with about 20,000 vehicles a day.
“The problem is, we’ve got some pavement that’s deteriorating on the roadbed, and the people around here know about it,” said Mike Kern. “So they tend to move over to the center lane the fear is we’re going to have a sideswipe, somebody is going to get hurt.”
He said he’s been trying to get action.
“I’ve called MoDOT a number of time,” Kern said.
He said that so far, nothing has been done.
“No offense to MoDOT; they’re understaffed, but on the flip side, we don’t want anyone to get hurt out here,” Kern said.
FOX 2 reached out to MoDOT for some answers about the problem patch of road.
“We have been out since you brought it to our attention and made repairs to the road,” said Tom Blair, district engineer for MoDOT. “I don’t imagine it’s the last time we will have to go out and make additional patches to the road.”
FOX 2 investigation revealed that MoDOT spent $2.2 million in 2015 to pave that 5.5-mile stretch of road.
Blair said he admits they’ll likely have to redo the same stretch of road again.
“Roads wear out. This is not my private driveway. This is a public road that’s heavily used,” he said. “It’s a very important road, it wears out we will have to go back and hire a contractor to resurface it.”
However, there are bigger problems. MoDOT, along with the Federal Highway Department and St. Charles County, have been studying a major fix for Route N that would include work on major intersections and other needed work. It would cost taxpayers about $60 million. Right now, officials do not have the funds for such a big undertaking.