RIVER CITY JOURNAL: YOU KNOW SCOTT CITY'S INTERCHANGE? IT'S TIME FOR A CONTEST

It's not easy living in the town with the worst highway access in the state. But a contest might help get the proper attention.

A while back the state highway department announced that, after holding hearings and listening to folks, there would be no new highway between Scott City and Cape Girardeau to relieve congestion on I-55 and on the mess called a highway interchange that gets traffic into and out of Scott City.

Wait.

This is going to be fun. I promise.

See, the highway department thought maybe a new road would be a good idea. It would have a bridge over the Diversion Channel and everything. But after looking a little more closely, the highway crew decided the cost of a parallel road would be way to expensive.

Naturally, I'm sorry the highway department didn't pursue the parallel road, which I could have called the Shadow Highway. But no highway, no poking fun.

There is, as it's plain to see, a perfectly good Diversion Channel bridge already. The holdup is what the highway department without cracking a smile calls the interchange.

I don't know about you, but I've driven on thousands of miles of interstate highways. I've seen interchanges that looked like a bowl of spaghetti. That's what my wife calls the multilevel snarl of highways in downtown Kansas City. My son, who has lived the past two years in Texas, thinks interchanges in that state are the craziest he's ever seen. He's moving to Kansas City. Gladly. Not just because of the highways, mind you. But he's glad to see Missouri's highways.

Except for Scott City's interchange.

This week I was seated at a lunch table where there were a couple of people from Scott City. I said I had an idea what might help the on-off highway problem in their fair city. I said I wanted to run it by them to see if it had any merit.

These were what I call important and influential people in Scott City, people who have demonstrated leadership ability and more than a passing interest in their community. I won't name them here, because I don't want them to take any guff for my idea.

But I want you to know they both thought my idea was a good one. So there.

Here's my idea.

Are you ready.

Here it is: Scott City ought to have a contest. I think the contest, which should be heavily promoted all over the state, should be to find the worst highway interchange in Missouri.

I think Scott City already is the winner hands down. But it would be interesting to see what other highway abominations there are. After all, if there's a contest, every town would want to be a winner. And even communities with lousy highways at least have something to talk about.

Now you might be asking yourself, what good would a Worst Highway Interchange in Missouri Contest do for Scott City.

Well, for one thing it might make the poor burghers of Scott City feel a little better if they knew people in some other towns had really bad highway interchanges too. It's not easy being the only town with a really, really bad highway interchange. After a while, you get a complex. This isn't fair to Scott City, which is a nice town full of nice people. It's not their fault they have such a bad highway interchange.

Most of all, though, this contest would get a lot of attention. I really think it would. I'd help any way I could, of course.

And if there was enough attention about bad highway interchanges all over the state, don't you think the highway department would be just a mite embarrassed and try to do something about it? My guess is they would start fixing some of the really bad interchanges. And where would they start? Why, with the worst highway interchange in the state, which we already know is in Scott City but which hasn't won any contests.

Yet.

OK, folks in Scott City. It's up to you. Do you want to live the rest of your life muttering under your breath every time you try to get on or off I-55? Or do you want a new interchange, one that even visitors from Iowa would appreciate.

Let's get this contest going. Scott City needs to win right away.

And someone should mention the contest to the highway commissioners when they are in Cape Girardeau next Thursday. All day. And part of the night.

Just a thought.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.