Buckle up and hope on Highway 34

Highway 34 from just outside Jackson to U.S. 60 guides motorists past an historic covered bridge, over streams and rivers, through forests and across hills.

It occasionally stops in small towns, towns just big enough to provide the necessities of life. You can buy groceries, eat at McDonald's, purchase a car and fill it up with gasoline in both Marble Hill and Piedmont. Other towns, like Silva, are little more than rest and fueling stops.

But those who drive the highway every day paint a not-so-pretty picture. For some, the highway is a nuisance, a slab of blacktop and concrete so crooked and hilly that it takes them forever to get anywhere.

For others, the highway is a hazard; the absence of shoulders and its numerous blind spots make a life-or-death obstacle course. The minute you lose your concentration is the minute you end up upside down, crushed in your car at the bottom of a 40-foot ravine. The moment an oncoming motorist loses his concentration is the instant to make a lose-lose decision, a choice in some cases to take the approaching vehicle head on or take a chance against a row of tall pine trees just a few feet from the white stripe.

Despite the safety issues that taint Highway 34, the upgrade that the Missouri Department of Transportation has promised for decades still remains low on the list of priorities. MoDOT officials say the road has not been given a higher priority because it does not carry the amount of traffic of other highways in Southeast Missouri. And they're right.

There are stretches of the road past Piedmont that a motorist can go miles without seeing another vehicle. And the road itself is in good shape, at least compared to other busier, pothole-plagued roadways like Highway 67, which connects the area to Poplar Bluff, a regional hub for commerce.

But there are busier stretches of Highway 34 where it is being used as a commuter path, particularly from Marble Hill to Jackson. Plans and discussion to widen and straighten the entire 85-plus miles have been going on for so long, many have given up on the idea. MoDOT officials say it will likely be another 12 to 15 years before any real progress is made.

Friday, the Southeast Missourian spent the day traveling 34 from Jackson to Highway 60, listening to residents from Burfordville to Piedmont air their concerns.

Burfordville

The stretch from Jackson to Marble Hill is certainly not the worst of the highway. There are many twists and tilts, but the turns and terrain are not as drastic as some of the other stretches.

Heading east toward Jackson, there are more than 20 places to pass, but many of them are short, and usually traffic doesn't allow passes to be made, particularly in the mornings and evenings. These conditions often prompt motorists to take unnecessary risks.

The Corner, a convenience store and gas station, marks the halfway point between the two towns.

To the west and north on UU reside the folks from Scopus. To the east and south on OO is Burfordville and a shortcut to Highway 25 near Dutchtown.

The Corner stays busy enough that two clerks -- Jan Cook and Robin Long -- were working behind the counter Friday morning.

Cook believes complaining about the highway won't make the work get done quicker. But she and Long both agree that the highway is not safe.

Cook said she is disappointed with the work that MoDOT did at the junction of highways 34 and 72 three miles north of Jackson. A left lane was installed, but the area is still not safe, she said. One day, while trying make a turn at the intersection, Cook was almost hit head on by a motorist who was apparently confused about which lane to use.

"That project was the biggest waste I've seen in my life," Cook said.

Long's problem spot is a straight stretch on 34 at County Road 349, the next county road west of The Corner. The road is at the top of an incline, one of many such road entrances along the highway.

"You have go right to the top and pretty much make a complete stop because you don't know if there's going to be somebody in your lane trying to pass," she said. "I've had people coming at me in my lane before. It's one of those blind spots."

Long and Cook both recall a summer day in 2000 when an acquaintance, Iris Null, was killed in a four-car pile up near the store on 34. Null, 20, a senior honor student at Southeast Missouri State University, died when the vehicle she was driving was rear-ended by a tractor trailer. Road work had slowed down the traffic at a bridge on the highway, a place that is just beyond a turn and a hill.

Two years later, the area is marked with two sets of flowers that serve as memorials to Null. She had been married to T.J. Null less than a year.

Marble Hill

Highway safety doesn't always mean motorist safety, at least not to librarian Eva Dunn. The highway, more particularly a bridge over Hurricane Creek, serves as the only means across the creek for miles.

When raging floods swept through the Bollinger County seat twice this spring -- doing damage to the library, the city hall and several other buildings -- no one on the east side of town, including emergency personnel, could get past midtown because water was over that bridge. This scenario is alarming to Dunn.

One of MoDOT's proposed plans would relieve that problem, creating a new section of 34 that would bypass the western half of town and join Highway 51 just north of Marble Hill's main intersection.

That suits Dunn just fine on another front, too. Unlike one of MoDOT's other proposals, the preferred route would not affect the Bollinger County town.

Dunn is concerned about the entire highway, not just the portion that runs through Marble Hill.

"West of here, there's not a curve that there hasn't been an accident on," she said. "As you go east, then we have a lot of commuters, and you can sit an hour waiting behind tractors. It would be nice to have turn lanes. I'd like to see some of the highway money come to the rural areas versus all of it going to Kansas City and St. Louis. None of us is our holding our breath."

Silva

The highway from Marble Hill to Silva is one of serious corners and hills, a combination that motorcycle and sports car enthusiasts no doubt see as an entertainment opportunity.

Forget curve signs. Straight arrows -- indicating nearly 90-degree turns -- and 25-mile per hour speed limits warn of some of the corners along these 34 miles. There is not much traffic on this portion of 34, but the highway -- and the trucks that clog it -- make the trip slow-going.

According to Dave Selden of Silva, not all motorists take their time.

Selden lives at a retirement community just east of Silva. He said there is a problem with drivers zipping by his house at 60 miles per hour when the road, he said, was designed for 45. Indeed, most of the yellow warning signs that indicate curves usually suggest speeds of no more than 45.

Speeding is one of many complaints Selden expressed while filling up at the gas station at Silva. He has lived in the area since 1964 and said he remembers talk of improving 34 way back then.

Like almost anyone who drives 34, he is most concerned about the fact that there are no shoulders.

When former Silva postmaster Judy Daves pulled up to the gas pump and joined the 34 discussion, she said she was almost run off the road just west of town by a truck pulling a double-wide trailer. The driver pulling the load could not possibly negotiate the curve safely, she said. Daves said she came to a complete stop on the side of the road, but couldn't get off completely because there was no shoulder.

Considering there are some steep drop-offs, Selden believes there should be some barricades to prevent vehicles from flying off the road.

Patterson

Just outside of Silva, heading west, traffic increases again and the road is a bit wider then becomes severely crooked and narrow again.

Part of MoDOT's plans include widening 34 to four lanes in three areas, including from Silva to Piedmont.

Matt Wilson, owner of S&D Quickmart, and Kimberly Friley, the store manager, don't see the need for four lanes. But they both agree the road is too narrow.

"Piedmont hasn't grown in the 20 years since I've been here," Wilson said. "I don't think we need a four-lane out this way."

Wilson drives a truck for North American Van Lines and has difficulty managing his rig on 34.

"I drive a truck and when I go into Piedmont, if I've got a load, it throws me toward the ditch when I go around the curves," he said. "Then if I overcompensate, I go over the center line."

So a straighter highway with shoulders -- not more lanes -- would satisfy Wilson just fine. And he is not alone. Selden and Daves said the same thing.

Piedmont

A person can't help but notice the potpourri aroma the instant he steps foot into Glenn Rayfield's Piedmont Florist Shop. But according to Rayfield, MoDOT's plan to bypass the town stinks.

MoDOT has two options, one that would sweep south of the high school and trace the western edge of town. The other plan would take it to the north.

A bypass would hurt downtown as developers take business to another part of town, Rayford said.

He said the situation is fine the way it is and creating a bypass would be too high a price to pay for the sake of traffic convenience. MoDOT officials have said the bypass would run so close to the town that the economic impact would be minimized.

"What are people going to save?" Rayford said. "People can make it through this town in five or 10 minutes. That's a lot of money to spend to save a few minutes."

Many people in the surrounding area shop and eat at Piedmont despite its small size. The town supports a small Wal-Mart and several small businesses. A big reason for that is because it's 50 miles to Poplar Bluff.

Arguably the worst part of the highway is the last 26 miles from Piedmont to U.S. 60, southern Missouri's widest and most important east-west artery. Cars are few and far between the farther west one travels, but pallet and logging trucks pass regularly. Steep slopes are the norm, though guard rails are rarely seen.

Traveling east from 60, there are 16 passing zones between Piedmont and U.S. 60, and most of them are short. There are 34 curves sharp enough to demand warning signs. Traveling east, there are more than 80 curve signs from Jackson to U.S. 60. For every curve along the highway, there are dozens of residents along the 90-mile drive -- as well as those along other highways such as 72 and 51 -- dissatisfied enough to demand an upgrade.

But after so many years, they scoff at talk of improvement.

They just buckle up and hope for the best.

bmiller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127