The city of Carthage, Missouri, and the Missouri Department of Transportation may have hammered out a compromise that will lead to a better bridge-project detour for Route 66 travelers and give maintenance to those old bridges on the detour.
The Carthage Press reports the agreement that will be voted on by the city council Oct. 25:
• MoDOT will take over maintenance of North Garrison Street so it can be used as part of a detour, separate from the regular detour, for Route 66 travelers and people in vehicles lighter than nine tons.
• MoDOT will install decorative light poles and lights, similar to those recently installed on the interior of the Carthage Square. The city will agree to maintain the lights and poles after they’re installed and supply electricity.
• The state will ask the contractor to salvage as many of the balusters on the railings of the now-closed railroad viaduct and give them to the city to use or dispose of as the city sees fit.
The agreement comes in response to the state closing the aforementioned railroad-viaduct bridge on Missouri 96 (aka Route 66) on the northeast side of town. MoDOT had planned to wait for spring to replace the 1934 bridge, but advanced deterioration forced it to close the span in September. Replacing that and another bridge near Kellogg Lake was expected to take about a year.
Route 66 businesses in Carthage are unhappy about MoDOT’s official detour because it takes travelers well south of downtown Carthage and its landmarks. Another bridge-replacement project in 2012 near the same area caused a lot of confusion with Route 66 travelers or prompted them to bypass it. Businesses didn’t want this to happen again.
The best detour for westbound Route 66 tourists would be Java Street to Garrison Avenue, which would directly lead to downtown.
That part of Garrison also served as an early alignment of Route 66 and contains at least three old bridges, including the 1928 Garrison Street Overpass, and a stone gas station.
MoDOT also is offering financial incentives for the contractor to finish building the new bridges ASAP, instead of a one-year timetable.
It now seems MoDOT listened to Carthage residents duringhearings about the bridge projects in July. A well-marked Route 66 detour, maintenance on the Garrison Avenue bridges and faster completion time on the other bridge repairs seem like a win-win-win.
(Excerpted image of the Garrison Street Overpass via Google Street View)