HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT STUDIES ROADS PLAN

Missouri Department of Transportation officials hope to have an initial review of a proposed package of road and highway improvements completed within a month.

Last week, representatives from Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Cape Girardeau County presented to the department a package of 19 proposed improvements to local, state and county roads and highways.

"We'll begin to identify the things that we believe are state versus local," said Scott Meyer, MoDOT district engineer. "We'll also begin to talk about the Regional Planning Commission's role in the evaluation."

The state will develop "a couple of tiers" of priorities from the list of proposed improvements, he said. "We have certain things that are planned, and we have some things that are the first of the state needs that are out there."

The state also will look at "funding streams and the amount of money that's been spent already in the Cape-Jackson area in the last five years," Meyer said.

The amount of money available and initial cost estimates will have to be looked at, he said. "I'm not sure we'll have those numbers exact, but we want to at least start that discussion."

MoDOT will also review the package "within the role of the studies that are now being done," Meyer said.

The state is studying alternates for a Highway 34 bypass between Cape Girardeau and Jackson and improvements to the Highway 34-72-25 corridor.

Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III said the time frame if and when the improvements are carried out will rest with the state since so many of the proposed projects involve state routes.

"I think it's now back with MoDOT at this point to look at the feasibility of the state routes," said Spradling.

Once the state makes its decision, the local governments will start their work, Spradling said.

In Cape Girardeau, he said, the Planning and Zoning Commission will look at existing city streets and how the improvements proposed in the package will affect them.

The City Council will act based on the zoning commission's recommendation, Spradling said.

It is possible, Spradling said, that the city will consider asking voters to approve extending the transportation sales tax to help fund the city's share of the projects in the improvements package.

Cape Girardeau businessman Earl Norman helped develop the list of projects in the package. Norman owns property that would be impacted by some of the proposals in the package -- including the East Main Street extension to Interstate 55 in Jackson and land surrounding the Mount Auburn Road extension and the planned new vo-tech school in Cape Girardeau.

Norman won't discuss his role in developing the project list except to say that he "participated in the discussions" surrounding the package.

Walt Wildman, a consultant for the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association on a proposed east-west highway project, also helped put together this latest package of road proposals. He said Norman "did have a hand in it."

But some of the proposals were already mapped out from previous discussions, Wildman said. "The new part is to put it all together," he said.

Local officials said they aren't too concerned with who wrote the proposals -- their ideas are included, including the East Main extension and widening Route K to four lanes from Gordonville to Highway 74. Those two projects are the only two in the package designated as top priorities by both cities and the County Commission.

Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones called the package "a combination of things that had been worked on for quite awhile."

Spradling said Norman "has made suggestions to us in the past" regarding road development.

But, he pointed out, the City Council and Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce have looked at the proposals "and certainly feel that they are worthy of consideration, or at least some of the routes are."

"Should it also benefit a private individual, if he's going to develop the property, so be it. That's my attitude," Spradling said.

Norman said he's owned the property around Mount Auburn Road "for years," and though he only recently acquired the land near the proposed East Main Street extension, the project has been under discussion for a long time.

"The package itself really has nothing to do with anybody's ownership of land," Norman said. "It has to do, in my opinion, with what's best for the community and where the traffic needs to move over the next couple of years, and we should all be concerned with that."

Meyer and Jones said officials will be gathering input on the package before any decisions are made.

Wildman said the package grew out of his work promoting an east-west corridor connecting Van Buren, Mo., and Paducah, Ky.

"It became apparent that in order to do that, it was going to be necessary to do other things," Wildman said. "One thing led to another, and we came up with this whole system thing."