SOUTHEAST AREA GO GET FAIR SHARE FROM NEW PLAN

Southeast Missouri would rank only behind the St. Louis and Kansas City urban areas in state road and bridge funding under the Missouri Department of Transportation's five-year highway plan.

Southeast Missouri is slated to receive more money for road and bridge projects than any other rural area of the state over the next five years, according to MoDOT.

MoDOT's District 10, which encompasses Southeast Missouri, would receive nearly $330 million or 7.8 percent of the $4.25 billion that the state plans to spend on specific road and bridge projects over the next five years.

"We have basically doubled our construction program down here," said Barry Horst, project development engineer with the District 10 office in Sikeston.

"We're talking about averaging about $60 million a year in road and bridge improvements during the next five years," he said.

Five road and bridge projects account for more than $167 million or nearly half of the five-year plan's funding for District 10.

Those projects include improvements to U.S. 67 and Highway 412 and the new Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge at Cape Girardeau.

The bridge project alone accounts for $64.8 million in the five-year plan. That excludes the money that already has been spent on the project.

MoDOT supplied the district-by-district funding information as part of a comparison of the new five-year plan and the recently scrapped 15-year highway plan.

The comparison was made at the request of the Southeast Missourian.

MoDOT officials have spent much of their time in recent weeks providing information to the new Transportation Oversight Committee of House and Senate members.

The 14-member committee was set up last year to scrutinize the state agency's operations.

The St. Louis area would fare the best under the five-year plan adopted in November by the Highways and Transportation Commission.

It would receive $1.42 billion from 1999 to 2003, or 33.4 percent of the money budgeted for specific projects, according to MoDOT calculations.

The St. Louis area is covered by MoDOT's District 6. It includes St. Louis city and all of St. Charles, Franklin, Jefferson and St. Louis counties.

The Kansas City urban area would receive more than $690 million or 16.2 percent of the funding. The area includes all of Jackson County and parts of Clay, Cass and Platte counties.

The area is part of the highway department's District 4. The remainder of that district is considered rural. It includes the rest of Platte, Clay and Cass counties and all of Ray, Johnson, Lafayette and Henry counties.

Missouri's two urban areas would receive $2.1 million for road and bridge projects in the five-year plan or just under 50 percent of the total funding.

The state's rural areas would receive just over 50 percent of the road and bridge dollars.

The plan includes another $45 million for projects that have yet to be identified.

For urban areas, the plan is an improvement over the allocation of funds in the 15-year plan.

Under that plan, urban St. Louis and Kansas City would have received 40 percent of the road and bridge dollars compared to 60 percent for the rest of the state.

District 10 would have received 8.4 percent or more than $1 million for listed road and bridge projects in the 15-year plan.

But MoDOT officials caution against making too much of the comparisons between the 15-year and the five-year plan.

"Over any shortened span of time there will be a different distribution," said J.T. Yarnell, chief engineer for the highway department in Jefferson City.

The 15-year plan started in 1992. During the first three years, 67 percent of the money went to road and bridge projects in rural areas. That was a higher percentage than was envisioned in funding for road and bridge projects in rural areas over the life of the 15-year plan.

Yarnell said the five-year plan doesn't provide equal funding for each of Missouri's 10 highway districts.

He said the goal of the five-year plan is to provide road and bridge improvements where they are needed most, including putting money into preservation of existing roads and bridges.

MoDOT wants to improve various highway corridors in rural areas.

Under such a policy, the widening of Highway 60 to four lanes between Sikeston and Poplar Bluff would have received a high priority and have been done over a shorter period of time than occurred under the "scatter gun" approach to funding projects, Yarnell said.

The state highway commission scrapped the 15-year highway plan after concluding that there wasn't sufficient funding to accomplish all the projects.

MoDOT officials said the rolling, five-year plan includes projects identified in the 15-year plan as well as other projects that weren't specifically mentioned but meet the original plan's guidelines.

Mike Golden, MoDOT's chief operating officer, said there isn't enough money to fund all of the 15-year projects, no matter the timetable.

"It can't be done," he said.

MoDOT officials said the agency is doing a better job of estimating project costs.

Under a new law that set up the Transportation Oversight Committee, MoDOT must document when the cost of a project exceeds the estimate by 10 percent or $5 million and explain why.

Said Golden, "There are an awful lot of safeguards in place on how well we do our business."

MAJOR PROJECTS IN SOUTHEAST MISSOURI

The Missouri Department of Transportation's five-year plan includes funding for five major projects in Southeast Missouri totaling $167.5 million.

1. Construction of a new Mississippi River Bridge at Cape Girardeau, $64.8 million. (Figure doesn't include money already spent on project.)

2. Widening Highway 412 to four lanes from Interstate 55 at Hayti to just east of the Dunklin County line, $43.1 million.

3. Improving Highway 67 from Farmnington to Park Hills, $27 million.

4. Highway 67 bypass at Fredericktown, $20.2 million.

5. Highway 67 bypass at Poplar Bluff, $12.4 million. (Figure doesn't include $15 million already awarded in contracts for project.)