EFFORT UNDER WAY TO UPGRADE HIGHWAY 60, BUILD RIVER BRIDGE

SIKESTON -- Members of a committee wanting to link Paducah, Ky., with Charleston sat down with lawmakers from Southeast Missouri for the first time this week, informing them of details on Closing the Gap.

That is what the committee calls itself because the road and bridge project would link Interstate 24 in Kentucky with Interstates 55 and 57 in Missouri.

Committee chairman David Brewer of Charleston, president of the First Financial Bank of Mississippi County, said the idea was spawned at a Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission meeting in Van Buren in December 1993. Brewer and others were there to get an update on making Highway 60 four lanes from Poplar Bluff to Willow Springs.

Because that project was placed on the commission's 15-year plan, Highway 60 Committee members turned their attention eastward. They discovered Kentucky's highway department already planned to turn Highway 60 into a four-lane between Paducah and La Center. Only 30 miles lay between there and Charleston.

"We met with Kentucky officials at the Wickliffe, (Ky.) courthouse, and they thought a link with I-24 sounded like a heck of an idea," Brewer said. "And we didn't feel it was competing with the I-66 project; this would be just a four-lane route from Paducah to Charleston."

The Interstate 66 project, part of which would link Paducah with Cape Girardeau, stalled last year and lost the support of several cities and counties involved in the effort to get a new interstate built across America. Brewer said that had nothing to do with the Closing the Gap Committee.

The main sticking point to Closing the Gap is a $100 million bridge over the Mississippi River that would be built south of the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. It would avoid wetlands and come off a bluff just south of Wickliffe.

Ballard County Kentucky Judge Bill Graves said the bridge over the Ohio linking his county to Cairo, Ill., needed to be replaced anyway. It was constructed in 1938 and not designed for today's traffic.

"This is the most sensible thing that could be done," Graves said. "All of our congressmen we have talked to have been very supportive of it.

"We're working our hearts out on getting that bridge."

If the bridge were built, it likely would be a toll bridge. Kentucky allows toll roads and bridges. Missouri Highway Commissioner John Oliver said the Missouri area possibly could form a transportation improvement district and ask for toll approval from the highway commission.

"If Kentucky takes the lead and does a feasibility study showing a road and bridge combination is feasible, Missouri would manage to find a way to hook up to it," Oliver said.

"The way money is right now, my advice to (Closing the Gap) would be to wait and not try to do anything before they could demonstrate it is a doable deal," he said. "It's a superb project idea with bad timing."

Kentucky people are starting a feasibility study now. Graves said the project could be completed within 20 years.

People from all the cities near the proposed route are participating in meetings, including Sikeston's economic development director, Bill Green. Sikeston would benefit from the project.

"It would put us halfway between St. Louis and Memphis and also halfway between Nashville (Tenn.) and Branson," Green said. "If there was ever a hub of economic activity, it would have to be Sikeston once this comes to fruition."

Green said the committee isn't being specific about which towns the new Highway 60 would go through, because members were cautioned not to tie themselves to any particular route.

Southeast Missouri lawmakers attending the meeting Wednesday included state Reps. Marilyn Williams of Dexter and Joe Heckemeyer of Sikeston; state Sen. Peter Kinder of Cape Girardeau; and Lloyd Smith, 8th District U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson's chief of staff.