Residents voice concerns over Jackson roundabout

Dozens of Jackson residents joined city officials and representatives from the Missouri Department of Transportation to further discuss roundabouts at a public hearing Thursday evening.

The city of Jackson and MoDOT have agreed to install a roundabout at the intersection of U.S. 61 and Main Street in uptown Jackson as part of a plan to improve traffic flows, but some residents remain wary of possible negative side effects that might accompany a roundabout.

Several asked about parking, to which MoDOT project manager Eric Krapf explained that while uptown might look different with a roundabout, the construction won't be as disruptive as it may seem at first.

"If you add up all the parking spaces that are available on the streets at this time, you have about 109," Krapf explained. "When we're finished moving things around, we're going to have about 104 or 105. We only expect to have a net loss of 4 or 5 parking spots."

Vintage Software owner Dan McQuade was an outspoken critic of the roundabout plan, because, to him, it seems to make uptown businesses less accessible.

"This is the first public thing that I've known about. If I missed it, I missed it, but [MoDOT] should have had more extensive meetings with the business owners who are going to be affected by this," McQuade said. He worried about the effects that intensive road work could have on older buildings, such as the one that houses his business.

"I just remodeled my entire building," he said. "In some ways I feel like we're sort of spitting into the wind."

And in some ways, he's right. The roundabout will almost certainly be brought to fruition, but Krapf explained that the purpose of the public hearing was to address such concerns and give residents with objections a seat at the table.

"We're going to take every precaution we can," he said. "We make improvements around historic buildings all over the state. We're going to do what we can to work with business owners."

And the roundabout might not be the only project facing Jackson. Tuesday's election saw the passage of a countywide use tax that may spell even more changes to U.S. 61. The new tax is intended to fund, among other things, the building of a new courthouse, the demolition of the current administrative building adjacent to the current courthouse, and the rerouting of U.S. 61.

Public works director Rodney Bollinger said that, depending on how Cape Girardeau County officials decide to proceed following the use tax's passage, the roundabout's construction may be affected, but any effect would be minor. Krapf explained that the project has been developed with an alternate north stem to be used in the event that the county chooses to demolish the administrative building and reroute U.S. 61 diagonally.

"While I can't speak to what decisions the county will make, we've got the alignments from [the county's] engineers for if [a realignment of U.S. 61] were to happen," Krapf said. "So that this project would work either way."

The next step in the process is MoDOT's acquisition of the right-of-ways, which should be underway by July, but between now and then, MoDOT plans on holding more meetings like Thursday's so Jackson residents can stay informed about the project's progress.

tgraef@semissourian.com

388-3627

Pertinent address:

Jackson, Mo.