SIGNS UP ON NATIONAL BIKE TRAIL

The first signs in Missouri marking the Mississippi River Trail, a bicycle route planned to extend 2,000 miles from Ste. Genevieve to New Orleans, have been placed on poles in Mississippi County, said Angela Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Transportation.

The Transportation Department and the Division of Tourism have decided to go forward with the trail in spite of objections from loggers in Perry County.

The department has no plans to add pavement to the roads, just signs marking the routes.

Scott Meyer, district engineer of the Missouri Department of Transportation said his department would monitor the trail and evaluate its safety.

At a meeting in Perryville March 12, loggers objected to routing bicyclists on Routes H and C because they were narrow and without shoulders and were where they drive logging trucks. They suggested moving the trail to U.S. Highway 61.

State officials decided at first to try to persuade loggers and local officials to change their minds before moving forward, said Lori Stout of the Division of Tourism.

"We don't want to force this route down their throats if they don't want it." she said.

She said moving it to Highway 61 would take it too far from the river, eliminate some of the best scenery from the route and force cyclists to use a gravel shoulder on a busy road.

Cyclists wrote letters to Perry County Presiding Commissioner Karl Klaus saying they had ridden the trail and it was safe. Klaus said publicly that since the roads were state-maintained, "it's out of our jurisdiction."

Stout proposed adding signs to warn bicyclists of logging trucks and to warn truck drivers of the bicyclists.

Stout said Tom Tucker, executive director of the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning and Economic Development Commission, said it was OK to try Routes H and C with the warning signs.

Tucker is on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

But loggers still object.

Stan Petzoldt, a manager at the East Perry Lumber Co., said, "There's lumber trucks, and there's agricultural trucks, and just when you're coming over C on the hills at 45 or 50 miles per hour, there's nowhere to get out of the way."

He said summer is peak season with 100 lumber trucks driving down those roads on some days.

Stout had ridden her bicycle on those roads with no problem.

"I hope everything is going to go real smoothly," she said, " and when cyclists are going to come through and spend money in the towns, the people will change their minds."

The route will follow Highway 61 south from Ste. Genevieve to Highway H in St. Mary, then take Highway H to state Route 51 and jog over to Route C, and take Route C to 61 near Pocahontas, then 61 to Highway 177 in Cape Girardeau County to Route V to avoid the Procter & Gamble plant to Missouri Route 177 near Trail of Tears State Park and into Cape Girardeau.

It would exit Cape Girardeau on Route K, go south through Chaffee and down Route 77 to Charleston, then on Route 102 to Dorena and cross the ferry into Kentucky.

The Tennessee part of the trail opened last year. The Lower Mississippi River Delta Center in Memphis, which first called for the trail, hopes to have it marked from Ste. Genevieve to New Orleans next year.