Let Jackson decide highway improvements

In the early 1990s, Missouri Department of Transportation officials started seriously knocking around the idea of four-laning Highway 34/72 all the way from the busy Highway 25 intersection to the western edge of Jackson.

By 1992, MoDOT workers were conducting roadside surveys near Pioneer Orchards, asking drivers the best way to improve that stretch. There were more surveys in 1995.

Public discussion, potential solutions and more public discussion continued into the next millennium. MoDOT talked about corridors, bypasses and everything in between.

Finally, last year, MoDOT stepped forward with the result of all those years of study and discussion: the idea of making Highway 34/72 four lanes with a median through a 3.5-mile stretch of Jackson. There would be no U-turns except at intersections with traffic signals.

This couldn't have been what Jackson residents have been asking for all these years. It certainly isn't what they want now.

That was abundantly demonstrated at a public meeting earlier this month. MoDOT officials presented maps and aerial photos, explaining that the $16 million project will be constructed in three phases beginning at the intersection with Highway 25.

Two people at the hearing explained how restrictive a median instead of a simple turn lane will be to businesses along the stretch. Paul Dirnberger, a partner in the Rhodes 101 store on Highway 34/72, said drivers on the wrong side of the highway won't bother making a U-turn at the nearest signaled intersection. They'll just go home, he said.

And Associate Circuit Judge Gary Kamp said the median could prevent drivers from finding the Jackson Jaycees Community Center, particularly out-of-towners coming to Jackson for events at the center.

But MoDOT officials insist that medians decrease accidents by 25 percent compared to turn lanes and decrease the severity of accidents that do occur.

This is an example of the I'm-from-the-government-and-I'm-here-to-help syndrome.

Why does it have to be a certain way? Can't Jacksonians decide they want four lanes of highway with a turn lane in the middle -- like the rest of Highway 34/72 in Jackson? Has one Jackson resident stepped forward to wholeheartedly support MoDOT's plan?

Jackson Alderman Joe Bob Baker is so frustrated by the situation that he wants to schedule a meeting with state legislators to stop the plan. Perhaps MoDOT will listen to elected officials, because the pleas of regular folks seem to be falling on deaf ears.