NEW BRIDGE ROUTE ADVANCES

Officials with the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department say a new section of Highway 74 in Cape Girardeau should be open by the first of the year.

That section between Sprigg and Kingshighway has two contractors working to complete the job by Dec. 31, department officials say. It is a fraction of the total road-and-bridge project that will provide a new link from Interstate 55 to a new Mississippi River bridge at a total cost of $85.7 million.

Jim Murray, the Sikeston-based District 10 engineer, said crews soon will begin building the section of the road from Kingshighway to Interstate 55. That section will include an interstate overpass.

"We still have some projects to let out there," Murray said of awarding construction contracts for the next phase of the roadwork. "There is still a lot of grading and paving between 55 and Kingshighway that has to be done."

That section also will be opened before completion of a bridge across the Mississippi.

At the earliest, the bridge won't be open until the year 2000.

Missouri and Illinois each have pledged more than $6.5 million to the bridge project and the balance, more than $52 million, will be funded by the federal government with "discretionary bridge funds" not yet appropriated.

Murray and his Illinois counterpart, Don Bridgewater of the Illinois Department of Transportation, said both states have their funds in line for the project. Both are awaiting federal funding.

"I don't see any major stumbling blocks at this point," said Bridgewater, based at the District 9 office in Carbondale. "It may be one, two or three years before we see the federal discretionary funds, because I don't know how the decision-making works at the federal level. I do know that we're going against every other state in the nation for those funds."

After the federal funds are secured, Bridgewater said, a bridge would take four years to erect. If everything worked out for the best, the bridge might be completed by the turn of the century.

U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson, R-Mo., asked a House public works panel to support the bridge project in March 1994. At that time, Emerson requested $55.3 million for the bridge construction.

The panel recommended the funds last year and the U.S. House passed a measure. But the measure didn't pass the senate, sending it back to committee.

"It could be passed this next year, but you never really know what's going to happen," the Cape Girardeau congressman said.

Murray said Missouri is ready to lead the bridge construction and that design plans should be completed by early spring. All rights of way for the roadwork have been purchased. "The funding issues just haven't been finalized," he said.