A dangerous drive: After 15 years, Highway 34 still awaiting improvements

For Missouri state trooper Aaron Harrison, making Highway 34 safer can't happen quickly enough.

He was among those who responded to the call after a 16-year-old Glenallen, Mo., boy died when his car slid off a curve last month.

"I have seen a lot of it. It doesn't get any better," Harrison said Wednesday.

Small floral crosses and beribboned bouquets dot the edges of Highway 34, each a memorial to someone who died along the roadway. A new one marks the road near where Cole Benfield died Nov. 19.

But it's been 15 years since the state said it would find ways to improve Highway 34. The twisting, hilly 87-mile road links Jackson, Marble Hill, Mo., and Piedmont, Mo., and stops just east of Van Buren, Mo. On Monday, a federally funded environmental impact study, the latest step in preparations, was delivered to the Cape Girardeau County Commission -- one of dozens of government agencies to receive it. So far, only Highway 34's intersection with Highway 72 in Jackson has been widened, a project scheduled to be finished early next year.

FRED LYNCH ~ flynch@semissourian.comMotorists driving from Marble Hill reach the crest of a hill on Highway 34, just west of County Road 402. A roadside memorial is situated just below Hahn Chapel.

The only Highway 34 project in MoDOT's five-year Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, which includes $4.35 billion for more than 725 highway and bridge projects and an additional $640 million for local transportation programs, is the replacement of three bridges that span Byrd Creek and Whitewater River.

Among the problems Harrison sees while patrolling are steep banks, sharp curves and old asphalt. The road needs grooved pavement to keep drivers alert and provide traction and "it would be nice if there would be some shoulders," he said, because pulling over a driver puts troopers at risk of being hit by passing cars.

Crash statistics from Jan. 1, 1997, through Dec. 31, 2001, indicate that every segment of Highway 34 has a higher rate of accidents than the state average of 232 crashes per hundred million miles traveled. Near the town of Silva, in Wayne County, the crash rate is 1,567. Excessive speed and inattention are blamed for the crash rate of 318 between routes DD and ZZ in Bollinger County.

"Slowing down is the biggest thing," Harrison said. "I always tell people to slow down and leave early. If you allow yourself 15 extra minutes for your commute in the morning and going to school, you're not so anxious to get there. You're not driving so fast, not wanting to get around people."

A 2004 cost estimate said completely renovating Highway 34 would cost $363 million. A bypass for Piedmont would cost $36 million; work on the Marble Hill segment was pegged at nearly $17 million.

Money will get more scarce as MoDOT project funding drops from $1.23 billion to $575 million by 2013, according to Bill Robison, MoDOT planning manager for Southeast Missouri. He said fewer than 1,000 cars a day use long stretches of Highway 34, though traffic counts spike in and around Jackson, Marble Hill and Piedmont. Highway 34 is one of several roads assigned to Eric Krapf, a MoDOT project planner. He said preliminary engineering work continues and the environmental impact statement is being finalized.

"Once that's done, that basically clears the footprint for the next step -- trying to figure out how to fund the improvements."

When the state does find the money, Highway 34's top priorities are the path between Piedmont and U.S. 67 in Wayne County, followed by the stretch linking Marble Hill and Glenallen.

Krapf said the 15 years since the state's decision to make Highway 34 safer may seem "like the wheels of government turn slowly, but people should know money is the grease that makes those wheels go faster. If the money becomes available for any of those improvements, we're not going to turn slow. ... We want to strike when the iron is hot."

pmcnichol@hotmail.com

388-3646

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