Old Bonhomme Road to Get Total Rebuild

With gain, there’s almost always some pain. Residents and travelers along Old Bonhomme Road in Olivette will endure construction inconveniences for more than a year.

Finally, the road, that dates back to a farmers' route to market in the 18th century, will get a complete rebuild from Price Road to Olive Boulevard. That’s a distance of about two miles.

Olivette’s public works department has been making patches and repairs to the road for many years. The good fortune of a rare federal surface transportation grant makes this total rebuild possible. The feds are putting up 80 percent of the money, and Olivette will pay for the remaining 20 percent.

“That’s quite a coup for our little city,” said Mike Gartenberg, Olivette’s director of public services.

Mayor Jean Antoine is ecstatic. “This is a good deal for our city, though construction will take more than a year. With this plan, we will be able to add in many more curb cuts for handicap accessibility,” the mayor said.

To be exact, the federal grant is for $1,984,43. “We have the rest (of the money). It's all been put aside to pay for our share,” Mike McDowell, the city’s manager, said.

The completed project will include:

• new curbs and gutters
• brand new pavement
• milling and overlays for the entire stretch
• rebuilding any part of the structure that is necessary
• widening sidewalks to 4 feet

“We’ve been using Community Development Block Grant money to keep the road in repair. But some of the guttering is completely gone, and water runs under the pavement, causing all kinds of issues,” Gartenberg said.

The construction phase is still more than a year off. Very soon, the Olivette City Council will put out a first call for Request for Proposals for engineering firms to design the project. Road constructors probably won’t even start to bid before the first of the year.

In the interim, the base at the intersections of Price, Crossroads Subdivision and Dielman roads were rebuilt to eradicate the washboard effects.

“We poured concrete and put an asphalt cap over the base. This was all planned before we knew federal grants might be available for the project,” Gartenberg said.

Some other issues have to be addressed. The sidewalk on the west side of the property at Old Bonhomme School, near Lindley Drive, is collapsing. Olivette is working with the Ladue School Board to address that issue.

Unlike the Highway 40 rebuild project by MoDOT, where all lanes of traffic were shut down, that cannot be done in Olivette.

“We have to keep portions of the road open at all times. There are far too many homes and subdivisions and a school on Old Bonhomme Road in order to do that,” Antoine said.

Olivette was lucky to get the grant money at all. “Only roads designated by the East-West Gateway Council as high volume arterials were even eligible to bid,” McDowell said.