highways

The Missouri Department of Transportation is evaluating roads before deciding which ones can have higher speed limits.

Purple martins are back in Kansas. Thousands of the birds are gathering near the Wichita airport each evening as they prepare for their annual migration. Plus: A small town in southcentral Kansas proudly bears the nickname “Midway USA,” positioning itself firmly between California and New York.

For more than 80 years, a sign along U.S. Highway 50 near Dodge City has served as the midway marker for travelers making their way through Kansas en route to California or New York.

An average of 3,400 animal-related vehicle crashes happen in Missouri each year, resulting in around four fatalities annually. Experts hope a first-of-its-kind study of which state roads need animal crossings will help improve safety for all involved.

Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a bill earlier this week that increases the maximum speed limit on rural interstates and freeways in Missouri to 75 miles per hour, up from 70.

The state has received more than $90 million in federal grant funding to improve Interstate 70 for all drivers, and especially for truck drivers.

The eight-state highway's origins started in Springfield, Missouri, a century ago on April 30, 1926. The route helped keep some Missouri and Kansas towns afloat during the Great Depression and after World War II.

"The Ghost of the Colonial Hotel" was unveiled this week at the exact moment a telegraph was sent officially naming Route 66, 100 years ago.

NBC's "Today Show" broadcast Thursday from the newly dedicated Route 66 Birthplace Plaza in Springfield, Missouri. Meanwhile, an event in Baxter Springs, Kansas — one of the inspirations for Radiator Springs in the Pixar movie "Cars" — featured the release of 100 lanterns into the sky.

A city team focused on improving U.S. Highway 71 has proposed moving the roadway below ground level, creating narrower lanes and building overpasses to connect neighborhoods east to west. The highway’s construction tore through majority-Black neighborhoods in east Kansas City decades ago.

The semi crashed on March 1 on a stretch of highway near Jerome, Missouri, but the truck's load of tofu became increasingly more pungent as temperatures rose.

As the United States’ first federal highway system, Route 66 connected people and places across the country. It was a symbol of adventure but also independence, especially for Black travelers through Missouri.