MODOT OFFICIAL URGES PUBLIC INPUT

The key ingredient to successful transportation projects is cooperation, Freeman McCullah said Thursday night at the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce's annual Transportation Dinner.

McCullah, the assistant chief engineer for strategic planning, said Southeast Missouri is a prime example for what can be achieved when the state, local government and business interests work together to improve transportation access.

He pointed to improvements in Route K and the recent completion of Nash Road to the SEMO Regional Port as examples.

The region is "actual evidence of multi modal transportation that makes transportation the lifeblood of the United States," McCullah said.

Completion of the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge remains the state's top transportation priority for Southeast Missouri, he said, as does the plan to widen Highway 60 from Van Buren to Springfield.

"The other course is going to what's going to happen to (highways) 34 and 25 and 72," he said. "Those are the big items."

The state is looking at ways to widen and improve those routes. A public hearing will be held Nov. 18 in Cape Girardeau on preliminary route locations for a proposed bypass from the 72/34 intersection west of Jackson to I-55 and for improvements to highways 25 and 77 from Chaffee to Cape Girardeau.

Maintaining I-55 is also high on the state's list of priorities, McCullah said.

"I think there's going to be a great deal of emphasis on stressing how can we better operate what we have rather than paving more lanes," he said.

The chamber of commerce sponsors the Transportation dinner every year to honor the people who work in transportation -- river, rail, highway and air.

McCullah, who served as district engineer in the Southeast Missouri region for several years, said a community's leadership needs to understand the impact transportation resources have on their community's growth.

People need to understand "what tremendous influence that you all have is that you are involved in the process and that you understand why we do what we do," he said.

With public support, he said, "there's always the ability to get the highway built or the transportation facility built."

Public input is important, he said, because transportation needs -- whether engineers are planning for roads in St. Louis or Chicago or a small town interchange -- are relative.

A few years ago, the state was planning to rebuild the Route A bridge over Castor River that leads into Marquand in Madison County, McCullah recalled.

A man at one of the public hearings on the project asked if the state were going to widen the bridge to make room for a left turn lane "so that people wanting to turn left in Marquand wouldn't hold up people wanting to drive on through town," he said.

McCullah said he told the man he didn't think he could justify the additional expense for a bridge that carried so little traffic.

"He said to me, `Sonny, you ever been hear during rush hour?'"

McCullah said transportation officials need to get a new perspective on planning for future growth.

"We worry too much about is the money going to be there when we ought to be worrying about having the plans for the project ready so that when the money becomes available, we're ready to use it," he said.