MoDOT is completing a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement which compares the impacts of rebuilding and widening I-70 to the impacts of rebuilding with truck-only lanes. MoDOT's original plan was to widen I-70 to six lanes, but a new option is to have eight lanes. There would be four lanes of traffic each way with two used for car and local truck traffic and the other two serving as truck-only lanes.

"Since during our first study, the public continually told us they were concerned about increasing volume in trucks so we decided to supplement our original study and compare the concept of dedicated truck lanes against our previous recommendation of just widening to three lanes in each direction," said SEIS Project Manager Bob Brendel.

The new plan also calls for separate exit ramps at U.S. 65, U.S. 63 in Columbia and U.S. 54 in Kingdom City.

Right now trucks make up 25-30 percent of I-70's traffic and are involved in 40 percent of all fatal accidents. The number of trucks is projected to double in the next 20 years.

"The typical section through Columbia would actually have the lanes all together," said Brendel. "The trucks would not physically be separated from the cars except by a two foot wide paint strip or a rumble strip which gives us flexibility."

Rural areas on I-70 would have a grass median separating the truck and car lanes.

The proposed cost of the project is $3.9 billion, but there's no funding right now.