COUNTY TO CONSIDER SUPPORT OF PROPOSED I-55 INTERCHANGE

JACKSON -- The Cape Girardeau County Commission may decide Thursday whether to support a proposal to construct an Interstate-55 interchange between the Highway 61 and Fruitland intersections.

The city councils of Jackson and Cape Girardeau have passed a joint resolution urging the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission to move forward with the interchange project. Although not essential, endorsement of the county commission likely would help move the project forward.

Presiding Commissioner Gene Huckstep said Jackson has requested the commission's support. Huckstep said he also received a letter from the state highway department advising him that the department still had an interchange at Route E near Oak Ridge as the county commission's No. 1 highway priority.

Huckstep said the commission endorsed that project in 1990 after being approached by a group of people in that area. At the time, the county had no other highway priorities, he said.

John Oliver Jr., a Cape Girardeau attorney who serves on the highway commission, said it is hard to justify the Oak Ridge interchange from a safety and traffic standpoint. "It has some things that make federal highway approval real difficult," said Oliver.

Jackson Mayor Paul Sander said it is essential to his city that there be a new east-west corridor built. Currently there is traffic congestion during peak times at the Highway 61 interchange, and the new interchange would relieve some of that pressure.

There is also a major bottleneck on Shawnee Drive, in the east and northeast sections of Jackson, where there has been heavy residential development.

The city intends to extend East Main Street, from where it dead ends at Shawnee, on toward I-55. Sander said the first phase of that project should be under way in a few weeks and will serve as a show of intent by Jackson to build a road to the interchange.

For Cape Girardeau, the new interchange would provide another point of access to the interstate and would open new areas for development.

"We have made a lot of progress toward this, but now we need the county to say this is a project of great priority and of greater priority than Oak Ridge," said Sander. "This should be the last step we need to move forward with the highway commission."

Oliver said public meetings are planned this fall by the highway department to seek input on projects. Public input is essential to all decisions on highway projects, said Oliver.

"We do need the county to say something, and that will be taken into account," said Oliver.

At this point the new interchange is just a request from Cape Girardeau and Jackson and is not on any plan. But if enough support is shown, Oliver said it could become a priority and perhaps take the Oak Ridge interchange's place on the 15-year state highway improvement plan.

He said putting the interchange on the list would not mean Oak Ridge will never be considered. "It is not an either-or deal; it is a when deal more than an either-or deal," Oliver said.

Huckstep said he has discussed the endorsement with Associate Commissioners E.C. Younghouse and Larry Bock, and they have drawn no conclusions yet.