JACKSON TRAFFIC SIGNALS SHOULD BE OPERATING BY END OF MONTH

JACKSON -- Traffic signals at West Jackson Boulevard and West Lane should be in operation by the end of the month, a Missouri Highway and Transportation Department spokesman at Sikeston said Tuesday.

The spokesman, Jack Grimes of the department's maintenance and traffic division, said workers were removing striping from the highway so left-turn lanes in the eastbound and westbound lanes of West Jackson and West Lane can be striped this week.

"If everything goes according to schedule, we plan to hang the signal heads next week and install the control box and bury the ground loops," Grimes said. "Barring any unexpected problems or bad weather, we should have the job done and the signals turned on around the end of the month."

Grimes urged motorists to slow down and watch for workmen in the intersection the rest of this month.

Grimes said the signals will be identical to those installed last year at East Jackson and Donna Drive. He said the signals will be suspended over the intersection from cable strung between utility poles that have been set by the city of Jackson.

Grimes said the intersection was widened this summer so left-turn lanes could be installed on East Jackson. He said this will allow eastbound and westbound traffic on West Jackson to move through the intersection while school buses and other vehicles wait to make left turns.

The project is fully funded by the state. The city will provide electricity to the signals, Grimes said.

The signals were requested by the Jackson School District and the city. Freeman McCullah, District 10 highway engineer, said the state agreed to install signals because of the heavy volume of traffic generated by nearby R.O. Hawkins Junior High School and West Lane Elementary schools. Both schools are on West Lane and have large student populations.

"We have a unique situation out there," McCullah said. "We do not have a constant flow of traffic on West Jackson 24 hours a day, but we do have heavy school-bus and school-related traffic in the morning, around noon, and in the afternoon.

"In addition, there is a lot of traffic coming in and out of residential areas to the east and west of the intersection," he said "The signals will stop eastbound and westbound traffic on West Jackson long enough for these folks to get on and off West Jackson safely."

Jean Kurre, bus transportation coordinator for the Jackson School District, said each school day all of the district's 40 buses plus the vo-tech and kindergarten buses from outlying attendance centers must use the intersection going to and from the two schools.

Kurre said during morning rush hour buses must wait to make left turns off West Jackson onto West Lane, causing rush-hour traffic behind the buses to back up past Pioneer Orchards. In the afternoon it's difficult for the buses to turn onto West Jackson or cross West Jackson because of approaching traffic, said Kurre.