SEEKING THE OPEN ROAD: JACKSON STILL WANTS A BYPASS STREET TO EASE TRAFFIC CONGESTION

JACKSON, Mo. -- During months of public meetings in 1998 to discuss nine bypass alternatives for Highway 34/72, Jackson city officials were non-committal while privately endorsing widening the existing highway.

The widening project became the Missouri Department of Transportation's choice. But a major roadway looping through the southern part of the city remains a priority.

The city's Planning and Zoning Commission ranked a proposed collector street an artery that loops through a city and that smaller roads feed into second out of 18 priority projects in the city's Major Street Plan. The city has decided to go ahead and get easements from the two property owners whose land bounds the first leg of the collector street, even though Jackson has decided to put most of its road projects on hold until a major traffic study can be completed. The landowners are giving the easements to the city.

The proposed collector street eventually could serve some of the same purposes as a Highway 72/34 bypass -- routing traffic away from the city's interior.

Jackson officials must juggle the need to relieve traffic congestion with the desires of merchants in the city to have a stream of customers driving by their doors.

"Merchants in that area certainly didn't want to route traffic away," city administrator Jim Roach said. "On the one hand, we want traffic coming through the city to stop at local businesses and shop and buy gas. They need to come through. On the other hand, we're trying to figure out how to keep traffic flowing through town. I don't think most cities want to put traffic out yonder."

Bypasses costly

Roach, who was the city's public works director in 1998, said Jackson ultimately favored widening Highway 34/72 because the bypasses were so costly.

"If they were that expensive, what's the reality of the funding?" Roach said. "What has the probability of getting funding?"

Jackson favored widening as the cheapest alternative. The projected cost of widening Highway 34/72 was $22 million compared to the bypasses projected at $46 million to $88 million.

Scott Perry, a transportation project designer for MoDOT in Sikeston, Mo., says the widening of Highway 34/72 was decided on for one reason: "There was not enough public support for anything else."

They rated the public response. "The only support we had was for widening the existing highway," he said.

Last month, a new committee appointed to examine a list of 18 priorities for street improvements suggested by the Planning and Zoning Commission decided it was time to find a traffic engineering firm to study Jackson's worsening transportation headaches. No one currently associated with City Hall can recall any such study being done. No study has been done since Jackson began its surge of rapid growth in the 1990s.

Getting answers is expected to take up to a year.

"We have slowed the wheels on it," Mayor Paul Sander says. "We're going to get some help. We don't feel we have the traffic engineering experience."

The proposed collector street, which would be a continuation of West Lane, has been in the city's major street plan since the 1970s. It could eventually extend from the south West Lane/Old Toll Road intersection east to Highway 25.

The first leg of the road would go from the Old Toll Road/South West Lane intersection to the city industrial park at Route PP (Farmington Road). The estimated cost is $500,000.

Letter sent to MoDOT

City engineer Dan Triller has sent MoDOT a letter asking if the state would be willing to share in the construction costs since the road could serve as a detour during widening of Highway 34/72.

"It's a long shot, quite frankly," Roach said.

Sander emphasizes that the South West Lane proposal and others are just ideas until the traffic study is done. "We are going to study traffic flows of the entire city before we take any positions," he said.

However, the city will go ahead and accept easements from the two landowners Kenny and Elwanda Seabaugh and the Jackson Church of the Nazarene whose property borders the first leg of the road.

The city can return the easements if it decides not to build the road, Sander said.

If the street is built, Sander expects the controversy will be over whether to allow truck traffic on it. "That is one of the reasons we're going for this engineering traffic study," he said. "Where do we start encroaching on residential neighborhoods? Where is it wise to have truck traffic, and where is it wise to have residential? We hope they can answer that question in addition to whether or not the street itself is wise."

Wants recommendations

Rodney Bollinger, the city's planning and zoning supervisor, says the city wants the engineers to evaluate its current transportation system and to develop recommendations. The city also wants the study to produce a long-range transportation plan based on the city's growth rate.

He expects the city committee to present the Board of Aldermen with a recommendation for a firm to hire by Labor Day.

The city is sending out queries to eight Missouri traffic engineering firms that have worked for communities Jackson has contacted. Roach said it is not a foregone conclusion that the city will contract with any of them unless it is satisfied the product will be useful. The city is not looking for a study to put on a shelf, he said.

He estimates the study will cost the city $50,000 to $100,000.

Sander said the city probably will hold public hearings once some decisions are made about which of the study's recommendations are selected.