Cars honking, brakes squealing, and the shouts of angry drivers, that is what the roads in and around St. Charles County have been sounding like these past few weeks thanks to the major road construction happening on Duello Road. 

Duello Road has been completely shut down to traffic just north of Orf Road. In order to bypass this closure, cars must travel north on Duello Road, turn onto Highway 64, and then take the exit onto Lake St Louis Blvd. This detour can add up to half an hour to your daily commute. 

“I have to get up even earlier for school to go around the entire detour, and my brother doesn’t want to get up earlier to leave on time so it’s hard,” senior Tessa Wilson said about the detours. “Sometimes after school, you have to take the outer road to avoid the rush hour traffic and that’s just an extra long way around. It’s just really annoying.”

“It can be very frustrating, especially when you are stuck in traffic after school because you want to go home and do things,” junior Parker Sethaler said. “But I definitely think the construction is worth it, especially for the runners because they will now have a sidewalk to run on. It will also add a ton of space to the road and that is definitely needed.”

According to the St. Charles County Highway Division, the Duello Road project will “widen Duello Road, add curb and gutter and enclosed storm drainage, smoothe vertical alignment for improved sight distance, construct ADA-compliant concrete sidewalks along both sides of the roadway, add northbound and southbound left-turn lanes and add a westbound right-turn lane at the intersection with Orf Road

Duello Road was notorious for being very narrow with no shoulders and many new drivers would often sometimes run off the side of the road. 

This new project works to improve the overall safety of the road for everyone who uses it.

The construction is scheduled to last about eight weeks before the roads will open back up to traffic and things will return to normal.