Ribbon-cutting planned Today for Highway 50 interchange at Missouri Flat Road upgrades, carpool lane construction

The El Dorado County Transportation Commission is hosting a ribbon-cutting today on $80 million worth of expansions and improvements to Highway 50 in the Missouri Flat area west of Placerville.  The Highway 50 interchange at Missouri Flat Road has been completed. The project to make improvements and add carpool lanes in El Dorado County took about five years said Dan Bolster, senior transportation planner with the El Dorado County Transportation Commission. 

The project includes widening and interchange reconfigurations at Missouri Flat and Forni roads area, including two new freeway lanes on the Weber Creek Bridge.  Improvements were made to the Missouri Flat Road interchange and on U.S. 50 between Missouri Flat Road and Placerville Drive, a stretch that gets an estimated 52,000 vehicles per day.

Other work completed on Highway 50 in the area included construction of six miles of HOV lanes from Bass Lake Road to Cameron Park Drive, which about 61,000 vehicles drive through each day.

The program costs for both projects were estimated at about $103.6 million. Funding came from a variety of local, state and federal funds, including state Transportation Improvement Program money, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, El Dorado County, Proposition 1B and other sources.

Future projects, according to Caltrans, include an $11 million upgrade of two bridge decks on Highway 50 planned for summer 2013 and early 2014.