HIGHWAY 74 OPENS MONDAY

Without fanfare or celebration, new Highway 74 from Kingshighway to Sprigg Street will officially open to traffic Monday.

Motorists traveling Highway 74 from Sprigg to Kingshighway will encounter only one intersection stop: West End Boulevard, where a traffic light with in-ground sensors has been erected. The other 17 blocks are free of intersections or merging traffic.

The final phases of this first portion of the project have been slowed due to unpredictable winter weather. The danger of bad weather canceled plans for a ribbon-cutting or other opening ceremonies on Monday.

Larry Rohr, district highway design engineer with the State Highway and Transportation Department, department employees are proceeding with the next phase of Highway 74, which one day will link Interstate 55 with a new Mississippi River bridge.

Plans are finished for a bridge overpass at I-55 and Route 74. Bids for the project are scheduled to be let next week and could be awarded the second week of March.

Some grading work for the project has already been completed, Rohr said. Construction of the overpass bridge should begin this spring and be completed by next winter.

By that time, plans for the Mississippi River bridge will be ready. If the Illinois portion of funding is in place, construction of the river span could begin in early 1997.

"We're ready, but it's a case of when Illinois brings the appropriate funds," Rohr said.

In the fall of 1996, the second part of the I-55 interchange, which includes completing 74 from Kingshighway to I-55 should begin. It is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 1997. The last part of the project, removal of the existing river bridge, is scheduled for 2000.

The bridge and highway will cost $85.7 million.

To build the bridge, Missouri and Illinois have committed more than $6.5 million. The remaining $52 million for the bridge is expected to be contributed by the federal government in the next few months.