Jackson lobbies to alter road plan

JACKSON, Mo. -- The city of Jackson will send a letter to the Missouri Department of Transportation arguing in favor of a five-lane improvement to Highway 34/72 in the city instead of the four lanes designed by MoDOT.

Mayor Paul Sander emphasized Monday the letter is meant to promote a five-lane highway.

"It is not a declaration of opposition to a four-lane highway," he said.

The letter states that MoDOT's plan to widen the existing two lanes to four lanes separated by a median will hurt businesses and emergency vehicle response time due to the loss of left-turn access.

The city's position is that businesses' concerns about access and MoDOT's concerns about safety could both be addressed in a five-lane project.

MoDOT announced its plan to reduce the project from five lanes to four lanes more than a year ago. On the editorial page of Sunday's Southeast Missourian, district engineer Scott Meyer again outlined the reasons for the department's decision to improve the 3 1/2-mile stretch by routing traffic along four lanes separated by a median.

He wrote that the change to four lanes is "about saving lives."

For MoDOT, it reflects a safety-conscious policy shift toward limiting access along major arteries, he said.

Meyer says Jackson has been noncommittal toward the four-lane plan until recently.

Sander said the city waited to take a public position on the project until MoDOT provided more specifics.

He stressed that the city certainly prefers the four-lane plan over the status quo.

"We could live with four lanes with some changes," he said.

20 changes

The St. Louis traffic engineering firm hired to study Jackson's traffic problems has recommended 20 changes in the MoDOT plan, Sander said.

The letter, approved at Monday night's Board of Aldermen meeting, is addressed to Henry Hungerbeeler, director of the Missouri Department of Transportation.

Some five-lane roads that already were designed before the policy change was made last year still are being built, but no new five-lane roads are being designed in the district he directs, Meyer said in a phone interview Monday.

He did not know whether other districts are still designing five-lane roads.

Meyer wrote that when MoDOT studied options that would bypass Highway 34/72 in Jackson in the mid-1990s, the city did not take a position and a number of businesses opposed the bypass.

"Jackson did not want a bypass," he said Monday. "The only way to maintain this amount of traffic through the existing corridor is this solution."

Meyer said 16,000 people travel the route each day, while 121 residences and 30 businesses are affected.

"I've got to try to balance those," he said. "I've balanced them and have to come down on the side of safety."

Friday, the Jackson Chamber of Commerce will sponsor a meeting with Meyer to discuss the five-versus-four-lane issue. The meeting will be held at noon at Delmonico's restaurant in Jackson.

Alderman Joe Bob Baker also is planning to invite area legislators to a separate public meeting on the topic. Baker, who owns a business along the corridor, is adamantly opposed to a four-lane highway but says the opposition may not do any good.

"I think we're fighting a losing battle, but we'll do what we can."

Other business

In other business, the board held a public hearing on a special-use permit by Art Spradlin to operate an auto repair shop as a home occupation in a single-family residential district at 1402 S. Hope St.

Four people spoke in favor of granting the permit, which has been recommended by the Planning & Zoning Commission. Dean Welker opposed the permit, arguing that an auto repair shop is a commercial enterprise, not a home occupation.

The board will make a decision on the permit April 1.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182