FRUITLAND I-55 WORK AIRED AT HEARING

JACKSON -- The Missouri Department of Transportation presented to the public Thursday its plan to improve the Fruitland Interstate-55 interchange and nearby highways.

Procter and Gamble Paper Products Co.'s planned expansion and residential growth in the Fruitland area prompted the $7 million project, said Lynelle Skouby Luther, department project manager. The plan includes improvements to U.S. 61 and Highway 177.

She said the public hearing at the Jackson Knights of Columbus Hall was "a way of showing these plans to the public and receiving comments from them and taking those comments into account before we finalize those plans."

While many who attended the informal hearing were already aware of most of the proposals, aerial photographs, maps and conversations with highway department officials helped answer questions.

The plan would widen U.S. 61 to six lanes near the I-55 interchange, replace the interstate's overpass bridges and widen U.S. 61 to five lanes from the northbound I-55 interchange ramps to the Highway 177 intersection.

It also would add traffic signals at the I-55 access ramps on U.S. 61 and at the Highway 177-U.S. 61 intersection, and add several turning lanes on Highway 177.

The highway department plans to begin purchase of right of way along U.S. 61 in early 1999. The interchange improvements are slated to begin in mid-1999, and work is expected to be finished by the end of 2000.

Officials stressed that much of the funding for the project will come from the state Department of Economic Development, which is cooperating with P&G in a matching grant program. The rest of the money will come from state highway coffers.

The officials said some residents assumed state highway money was paying for the project entirely and was being spent solely to benefit P&G, while the funds should go to other needed work.

While P&G's new paper-towel plant will create about 350 jobs, Mitch Robinson, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association, said the accompanying roads improvements will lure other businesses to the area.

"There are going to be some companies over the next couple of years that will come up this way," he said. "Transportation access is always one of the top concerns for companies when they look at an area. It is real important that we get this upgraded. It all makes things much easier to sell."

Highway officials predict traffic will increase to 16,000 vehicles a day in 2020 from 10,000 a day in 2000.

Those numbers -- and the proposed improvements -- worry rural Jackson resident Don Borgfield.

Borgfield attended the hearing to voice concerns to engineers about the widened U.S. 61 between the I-55 interchange and the Jackson city limit. The plan calls for the widened road to connect with the existing two-lane road a short distance from the interchange.

"What are they going to do with the traffic when they funnel it from five lanes to two?" Borgfield said. "I've never seen anything like that work yet." He said U.S. 61 should be widened to the Jackson city limit and through the town.

He said residents who live on roads that intersect with U.S. 61 near Jackson will have trouble entering the highway with the increased traffic.