CENTER JUNCTION: WORK ON EXIT RAMP TO BEGIN NEXT MONTH

Next month, work will start to widen one of the exit ramps from Interstate 55 to U.S. 61 at Center Junction.

But local officials say it will take more than an extra turn lane to make Center Junction safe for motorists.

In October, Pace Construction Co. of St. Louis will begin work to widen the northbound exit ramp on I-55 to add a left turn lane.

The extra lane will allow backed up, right-turn traffic to move more quickly through the intersection, say Missouri Department of Transportation officials.

MoDOT engineer Barry Horst said the state is well aware of the problems of moving vehicles through the Center Junction interchange.

"We've been monitoring that interchange for some time," he said.

MoDOT is also looking at widening the southbound exit ramp, Horst said, but that project is not in the agency's five-year plan.

"That would be more like a maintenance-type operation for us, and we're keeping an eye on it," he said.

Depending on how high traffic volumes get through Center Junction, the southbound ramp could be widened "in the next few years," Horst said.

Traffic counts show about 15,000 vehicles a day move through the intersection from U.S. 61, while 22,000 vehicles move through from the interstate.

"That's a lot of cars and trucks," Horst said.

In July 1995, the state installed traffic signals at the intersection because of the high number of accidents.

"We had some pretty bad accidents out there, and we needed to so something," Horst said.

The plans to widen the exit ramps and the addition of traffic signals "are really just tweaking that interchange," he said.

The state's long-range plan for the interchange is to bring the lanes closer together on U.S. 61 and improve turn lanes.

The median on U.S. 61 would be narrowed, and turn lanes added to help traffic move more smoothly.

"That's really not a standard interchange design there now," Horst said.

But major improvements aren't on the state's five-year plan either, he said.

"That would be a more long-term solution," he said. "What's going to drive that is how that area develops."

"Massive development" at the interchange would spur interchange improvements more quickly, he said, as it did at the interchange of Route K and I-55 interchange.

But Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III thinks improving Center Junction should be a priority now.

"It ought to be on the 30-minute plan in my book, because it's just such a problem," Spradling said.

Jackson Mayor Paul Sander agrees, saying he would put improving Center Junction among his top three priorities, right behind the East Main Street extension to I-55 and the Highway 74 bypass.

Spradling said any major changes to the Center Junction interchange need to be designed with planned improvements to Highways 74, 34 and 25 in mind.

Sander said he would like to see U.S. 61 improved to include straightening the curve on the northbound side toward Jackson.

He agrees with Horst the lanes of U.S. 61 need to be brought close together.

Sander called the interchange "a big bottleneck" that "certainly the stoplights that were put in a few years ago have been an improvement. However, that's not the cure. That's just a Band-Aid."

Spradling wants to see the interchange replaced with a cloverleaf interchange, which would "improve the access on and off the interstate."

"They spent millions of dollars in St. Louis redesigning intersections and overpasses similar to this into cloverleafs, and that's what needs to be done for this intersection," he said.

Center Junction and the area surrounding are busy places for traffic accidents and violations.

So far this year, only one accident has been recorded within the interchange itself, said Cape Girardeau police Cpl. Kevin Orr.

But on I-55 from Kingshighway to the city limits, there have been four accidents, and 11 accidents from I-55 to Hopper.

On U.S. 61-Kingshighway, there have been six accidents from the I-55 to the Jackson city limits, and eight from the interstate to Limbaugh Lane.

"The intersection itself is not one of the high accident locations, but in and around that area, we've had several accidents, which you can see from those numbers," Orr said.

In addition, Cape Girardeau police have issued 43 traffic summonses this year in the area around Center Junction, Orr said, including 27 involving accidents.

During an Operation Safe Streets enforcement effort on U.S. 61-Kingshighway on Sept. 10, 1997, the department issued 20 summonses, 16 for red light violations and four for speeding infractions.

During a similar operation on I-55 on Dec. 29, police issued eight summonses for speeding and one to a motorist without a driver's license.

Spradling said local officials have a "heritage and a legacy" of haggling with MoDOT to have Center Junction redesigned.

In the meantime, he and Sander say, traffic problems at the interchange are holding up potentially valuable development.

"There are at least three corners of prime development there, and I think development is waiting to happen, but for the problems associated with the intersection," Spradling said. "If the intersection issues would get corrected, I think we would have a tremendous amount of development occurring in this area."

Sander said the interchange has "unlimited" potential for development.

"Some things are in the works on the Jackson side. There have been questions asked and inquiries made about properties adjacent to the junction on the Jackson side, and a lot of it depends on getting that interchange fixed," he said.