Kansas Expressway

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Charitable organizations in the Ozarks have seen an overwhelming amount of generousity since the Joplin tornado.  The Salvation Army and Ozarks Food Harvest are two organizations that are pleading with the public for volunteer hours.  The major time that they're short is the morning and afternoon shifts.  They hope folks can spend a few hours at their locations to sort donations and box them up. For the...

SPRINGFIELD --  Not in my backyard. That's the rallying cry of some Springfield residents who oppose a proposed expansion to the Salvation Army. The agency wants to rezone about 10 acres of land on north Kansas Expressway and west Chestnut.     If approved by city council, three homeless and transitional-living facilities would be built in order to meet the ever-growing need for shelters.       About 20 neighbors spoke out against the proposal citing safety concerns.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- City police matched a severed arm found on Monday next to railroad tracks to a man who killed himself in Montana last month.  The arm appears to have been caught in the undercarriage of a coal train and dislodged in Springfield. A Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway employee found the left arm near Kansas Expressway at Division Street.  It was severed below the elbow.  Police found no other indictions of foul play at the scene. The Greene County Medical Examiner's Office asked the Missouri State Highway Patrol's forensic laboratory to do a fingerprint analysis.  That matched the arm to William Escudero, 29, of Libby, Mont.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- A graduate student at Missouri State University will further his advanced education in the field of geology.  James Berglund received a $10,000 fellowship on Wednesday morning from the Missouri Department of Transportation. The money comes from an award that MoDOT received last October for the diverging diamond intersection on Kansas Expressway (Missouri 13) over Interstate 44. Berglund will use the fellowship to fund his master's thesis research in geology.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- A crash between a car and motorcycle sent a man to the hospital in critical condition on Monday night.  The accident was on Kansas Expressway, just north of Sunshine Street before 10 p.m. Police say the car was heading south on Kansas and turned in front of the motorcycle at Elfindale Street.  The rider suffered serious head injuries. While police were investigating, documenting and cleaning up that crash, another accident happened.  Officers say two cars collided at the intersection of Sunshine at Kansas, with one of the cars flipping over.  Police believe one of the drivers in the second crash could have been drunk.  Police say there were no major injuries.  About 15 emergency vehicles with flashing lights were still around the two intersections after 11 p.m.  Lanes were blocked and the motorcycle was still on its side at the intersection of Elfindale at Kansas.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - One of south Springfield's busiest intersections will begin to feel a tight squeeze over the next few weeks as work continues on converting it to a diverging diamond interchange. Northbound drivers on Kansas Expressway at James River Freeway will see traffic restricted to one lane beginning tonight.  Two southbound lanes will remain open, transportation officials said; however, those lanes will shift to the northbound side of the bridge. Lanes will be reduced to 11 feet in width as well.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- A man from Springfield pleaded guilty on Thursday to first-degree involuntary manslaughter for the death of a woman in a two-vehicle crash 18 months ago.  The plea occurred just before the scheduled beginning of the trial for Matthew Brannon, 32. Brannon was driving a vehicle that crashed on Oct. 16, 2010, at the intersection of Mount Vernon Street at Kansas Expressway.  The crash killed Kathryn Wells, 55, of Springfield.  She...

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- A new survey finds as many as 30 million Americans drive drunk every year.  With the holiday season traditionally comes a spike in DWI violations.  Now, some local agencies are changing their proactive approach. The Missouri State Highway Patrol , Greene County Sheriff's Department and Springfield Police Department try be more like fire preventers rather than firefighters when it comes to people who drive impaired; they'd rather educate than arrest.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- A truck hauling a large recreational vehicle crashed and closed part of Interstate 44 between Kansas Expressway and Glenstone Avenue at midday Tuesday.  Witnesses say the truck and RV went down an embankment through a guardrail opening.  Trees stopped the truck.  A husband and wife in their 70s were injured.  The crash involved no other vehicles. The crash at noon closed a lane of westbound traffic for about two hours but Springfield police continued to investigate after the highway reopened.

OZARK, Mo. -- Relief is finally in sight for one of the most congested intersections in Christian County.  A lack of funding, however, could mean drivers will have to sit in backed-up traffic on Highway CC at U.S. 65 for at least five more years. The growing pains of southwest Missouri are being felt by drivers who use that interchange. "It was just a decade ago that all that area was farm fields and cattle," said Ozark City Administrator Steve Childers.. The combined population of Nixa and Ozark is now close to that of Joplin.