E. Main project's price tag jumps to $8 million

MoDOT said the previous $5.8 million design wouldn't handle future traffic.

The Missouri Department of Transportation now plans to spend $8 million to construct the East Main Street interchange at Interstate 55. MoDOT previously had budgeted $5.8 million for construction of a scaled-down design that project manager Andy Meyer says eventually would have required improvements to meet future traffic needs.

MoDOT's approach to the design changed after Congress earlier this year authorized $10.8 million for the project, which will serve as an entrance to the cities of Cape Girardeau and Jackson.

MoDOT engineers say the new design will create the best interchange on I-55.

The state highway department showed off the plan at an open-house public meeting at the Osage Community Centre in Cape Girardeau Thursday. More than 60 area residents stopped by to look at various maps and drawings outlining the project.

MoDOT wants to build a five-lane East Main Street that would include two eastbound and two westbound lanes and a center turn lane. It also would have dual left-turn lanes at the interchange ramps, as are in place at the Interstate 55 and Route K interchange, Meyer said.

MoDOT earlier this year figured it wouldn't have the money to build such an interchange. Meyer said the agency was prepared to build a three-lane East Main Street, if necessary. Under that design, East Main would have one eastbound and one westbound lane and a center turn lane. The interchange would have single left-turn lanes at the interchange ramps.

Meyer said MoDOT likely would have to make costly improvements down the road if the agency were to build a scaled-down interchange, he said.

Both the $5.8 million design and the $8 million plan involve digging underneath I-55.

Meyer said building East Main Street over the interstate would be too costly because a lot of fill work would be required to build up the ground on the east side of the interstate.

"We were talking an additional several hundred thousand yards of earth work," he said.

The additional dirt work could had added as much as $2 million to the cost of the construction project, he said.

Jackson city administrator Jim Roach said he hopes the East Main Street approach on the west side of the interstate and the LaSalle Avenue approach on the east side can be designed to mirror each other so it will make for a single, uniform roadway at the interchange.

"We kind of have a blank board we can work with," he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123