City officials plan to appoint a committee to provide input for state engineers and to monitor their progress. This spring, the Columbia City Council gave mayor Darwin Hindman the go-ahead to form a committee to report to the council on state plans for the highway. The Columbia Chamber of Commerce had already formed a committee to study highway issues and asked for representation on the citywide group, which hasn t been named. The Missouri Department of Transportation will conduct hearings in cities from St. Louis to Kansas City, then name a preferred strategy for improving the interstate. That strategy will go through a more detailed study and could even be thrown out in favor of an alternative.
Options range from doing nothing to creating a parallel highway.
City officials, however, believe one of the few options for cities the size of Columbia is a limited-access loop. The council, business owners and other interests are sure to be divided over the final decision, chamber board chairman Gary Oxenhandler said, but the first step is to make sure state officials listen. Any new interstate route will affect the location of city services, Hindman said. Landowners who volunteer to enter the city receive water and sewer service. They also become subject to tougher regulations on development.