Your Thoughts On A Bypass Around Sedalia To Ease Summer Gridlock

It's that time of year again, summer in Sedalia. You know what that means, right? Lake traffic. On the one hand, the extra traffic is excellent for business. On the other hand, it's a pain for anyone trying to navigate Limit Avenue or Highway 50. Mike was so frustrated we talked about it on our Friday Happy Hour Show, and we both think a bypass to get the through truck traffic off local streets would be a great idea. We've shared our opinion, now it's your turn.

I asked your opinions on Facebook about the topic and here's what you had to say.

Dan Bridges wrote, "Truck traffic and lake traffic off of 65 and 50 in my opinion. If people want to eat or use the local businesses they would be more likely to stop if the traffic was lighter. I have always said that lake traffic keeps most of the local people home that would otherwise be out spending more money in Sedalia."

Mike, living in Sedalia, travels Limit Avenue a lot, so he gets more frustrated with the truck and lake traffic than me. However, I don't really like it when I'm trying to get out of the station parking lot and it takes me 15 minutes to get myself out of the City, westbound on Highway 50.

I don't think either of us wants to see a bypass kill local businesses, although some of you, worry a bypass would do just that.

Wendy Burch thinks it'll kill local businesses and cites what the bypass in California, Missouri did to that town.  Alena Gertz Hoeffling says, " I have yet to find a town that was bypassed and benefited in any way except less traffic. Less traffic means less sales tax dollars, fewer jobs, and the hometown small businesses that depend on tourism dollars suffer."  While Mark Pohl is more of a believer in Sedalia staying on top of road repairs, maintenance, and improvements. 

Dale Malone makes an impassioned argument against a bypass. He argues a bypass is what killed Osage Beach, and argues the towns Highway 50 bypassed like Dresden, LaMonte, Knob Knoster, Otterville, California, etc. killed those towns. Then goes on to point out how Highway 50 and its four lanes of traffic killed many Sedalia businesses because travel time was cut from 4-5 hours from Kansas City to Sedalia to about 90 minutes.

He explains, " On Friday they ended up getting here late and utilized the 25-35 Lil Roadside Motels here, restaurants, last minute food and clothing, and fuel before they went on to the lake next morning. Now 90 minutes tops from the Airport to Sedalia…. All those businesses in town closed, how soon we forget."

He also argues the reason traffic is so lousy, especially Friday between 3 PM - 6 PM is because the lake traffic hits all at once, and doesn't trickle in throughout the like it used to.

Not everyone thinks a bypass would kill the town. Some even like the idea. Keven Walker thinks a bypass would help the City grow even further as the bypasses have done in the Kansas City area. William Cramer feels, "It could help because it would also attract new businesses on those routes, fast food, truck stops, and motels."

While Erin Peters thinks as long as people can go through town if they want to, and not use the bypass, local businesses will be fine, while Stacy Martin just skips coming to Sedalia altogether because of State Fair and lake traffic and heads to Warrensburg's Walmart instead.

On those who commented on whether Sedalia should build a bypass to get truck and lake traffic off of Limit and Highway 50, more people are against it, mostly because they worry about local business, and because making it easier to go from point A to point B has hurt some Missouri small towns not very far from us. You can check out the entire Facebook discussion below.