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| When completed in a few weeks, Birch Street, shown looking toward its northern end with Business Highway 65, will extend south all the way to Branson Creek. |
Drivers going to and from the Hollister Highway 65 Interchange and the South Town Mall area from the east of Highway 65 will soon have a more efficient way to get there. The North Birch Street extension is currently being paved and, weather permitting is just a few weeks away from being opened to the public.
Rick Ziegenfuss, Hollister City Administrator said the improvement was a $2.8 million dollar project. He said that although the project was a joint public and private project, the vast majority of the funding, all but approximately $30,000, was financed with private funds raised through the South Town Community Improvement District and developers in the area.
Ziegenfuss said that one of the major benefits to the citizens of Hollister, of the road being completed, is that it permits them to move from the traditional downtown area of Hollister out to the South Towne area without having to go through the interchange or having to take the circuitous route out in front of the College of the Ozarks. He pointed out, although Hollister’s population center is still in its east side, with the expansion of Hollister’s city limits to the south and west from the current downtown area, that the Highway 65 Interchange has become the geographic center of Hollister.
In terms of the completion of the perimeter or outer road system for the Highway 65 Interchange, Ziegenfuss said the completion of North Birch Street to Business Highway 65 will extend the outer road system on the east side of Highway 65 from Business Highway 65 south to Branson Creek. He pointed out that the outer road on the east side of Highway 65, the Gage Drive extension south of McDonalds, extending just past the front of the Hollister Police Department and west back to its intersection with Historic Highway 165 is complete. It completes a loop that eliminates the need to cross over multiple lanes of traffic to get to the College of the Ozarks, downtown Hollister or other points west on Historic Highway 165.
Ziegenfuss said another benefit of the completion of the North Birch Street extension is that it will permit more efficient use of the Highway 65 Interchange. He said it is designed to handle 60,000 cars a day. Currently, because the outer road system on the east side is not complete, the intersection is substantially loading only from the west side. In addition, all the traffic back into Hollister from the east side of the interchange has to use the interchange further reducing its efficiency. He believes these problems will be substantially mitigated with the completion of the Birch Street project.
Furnished Courtesy of the Branson Daily Independent.
