TRAFFIC JAMS IN JACKSON: CITY TRIES TO CATCH UP WITH GROWTH

JACKSON -- Katherine King remembers when the drive from Jackson to Cape Girardeau was practically an all-day trip.

Alderman Jack Piepenbrok recalls drag racing on Main Street.

But you don't have to be a longtime resident to remember the days when a traffic jam in Jackson was having to wait at a four-way stop.

Those days are gone. Now, at certain intersections at certain times of the day, a 2 1/2-block line isn't unheard of.

The worst trouble spots, according to City Administrator Steve Wilson, are:

-- All streets that run into the Main square, especially the intersection of Highway 61 and Washington Street.

-- Shawnee at East Jackson Boulevard.

-- The intersection of Highway 25 with Highways 34, 72 and 61.

The city's basic traffic problem is that not many of its streets run north and south. Jackson was designed so that the major thoroughfare, Highway 61, ran right through the center of town.

Now the intersection where Highway 61 enters the square is one of the worst in town. Drivers wanting to cross the highway on Washington must yield to through traffic.

Piepenbrok says adding a right turn lane from Washington onto Highway 61 would ease the crunch. "But we have no jurisdiction," he says. "We have to beg the highway department."

The Missouri Department of Transportation is working on the Shawnee-East Jackson Boulevard intersection now but the work won't alleviate traffic problems. Curbs are being sloped to aid accessibility for bicycles and wheelchairs.

For years there was only a caution light at the intersection. The addition of turn arrows has helped. "But at Old Cape Road and Shawnee from 7 to 8:30 in the morning and from 3:30 to 7 in the afternoon is just about gridlock," Piepenbrok said.

"It drains about a third of the town."

When the city's new grade school opens south of the intersection of Highway 25 with Highways 34, 72 and 61 in the fall, congestion is a given. People who live outside of Jackson and are traveling east for work or to get to the interstate must come through this corridor.

Jackson officials are only too aware of the problems, which began appearing with the city's steady growth surge at the beginning of the 1990s. Along with Park Hills, the city is one of the fastest growing between St. Louis and Memphis, Wilson says.

The Southeast Missouri Regional Planning and Economic Development Commission is formulating a comprehensive plan for the city that will address traffic flow along with other issues. That plan is expected to be ready for review around the beginning of 1998.

Much of the city's morning traffic leaves Jackson for Cape Girardeau and returns to the city from the same direction in the evening.

"We don't have enough through arteries that take people out of town," says Alderwoman Val Tuschoff, who owns a shop on the square.

"We're trying to do what we can to get the traffic flow out."

At the four-way stop on Main Street, cars at times are backed up three blocks, she said.

Work on one of the primary solutions, extending East Main Street to I-55, already is under way. The first phase between Shawnee Boulevard and Oak Hill should be completed in a year or 18 months, Wilson says.

The second phase would extend East Main Street from Oak Hill to I-55. Jackson is on MoDoT's time schedule to receive another I-55 interchange in approximately seven or eight years, but Wilson hopes the state Highway Commission can be convinced that the need justifies advancing the schedule.

The city already has started the process of acquiring the necessary right of way for phase two. Some annexations will be required.

Right now, traffic accidents are up in the city and the primary cause is speeding, Wilson says. "The number one complaint from people is about speeding in their neighborhoods," he said. "The second biggest complaint is from people getting a speeding ticket."

The city is going to pick up the pace of speed enforcement, Wilson says.

The city is working with MoDoT to place traffic lights and extra turn lanes in spots where the traffic snarls are greatest. Widening projects are planned for Highway 25, Route 34 and Highway 61.

"But our traffic dilemmas aren't going to get better until we come up with permanent solutions," says Wilson, who has been the city administrator since November 1994 but has lived in the city since 1979.

"There are not any quick fixes. It's a slow process that will take time and staggering amounts of money."

Jackson is erecting more than 100 new houses per year and currently has 1,000 building lots platted, but developers say it's not enough. The development that is expected to occur on East Jackson Boulevard is expected to increase traffic on the city's main artery significantly, Wilson says.

Jackson has little in the way of alternative means of transportation, including buses or taxis. Wilson says a shuttle to Cape Girardeau might be a good project for a service industry to explore.

Piepenbrok says Jackson's traffic problems have been giving him nightmares. "I don't see any solution until we complete the road out to the interstate," he said.

When Katherine King was young, the cows and chickens would have to be fed by 4 a.m. so her family could spend the day at the SEMO District Fair. Now 75 and a resident on Old Cape Road all those years, she remembers when Highway 61 first came through town.

Now, she says, "Jackson is growing so fast, there are so many new people, we can't take care of it."