Website seeks to bolster support for 66 Corridor plan

Supporters of an east-west travel corridor that eventually could be built to connect Cape Girardeau with Paducah, Kentucky, through Southern Illinois are ramping up efforts to get like-minded comments sent to the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The department is leading the development of a federally required environmental impact statement for a potential highway also known as the 66 Corridor. The statement study began in the spring and includes a 2,500-square-mile area in Southeast Missouri, Southern Illinois and Western Kentucky. The study is expected to last about four years and is evaluating transportation needs along with potential environmental effects of a new highway, according to the department. Throughout the study process, the department is seeking public input.

A not-for-profit organization, the Transamerica Corridor Corp., which promotes transportation and infrastructure in the region, recently launched a website, Build66.com, that supports a new interstate highway to connect the Missouri and Kentucky cities by crossing Southern Illinois.

"We're just encouraging anyone in support of the project to submit their comment," said Jeff Glenn, a consultant for GlennView Strategies, which is working on behalf of the Transamerica Corridor Corp.

The website will be mentioned at First Friday Coffee at 7 a.m. today at Isle Casino Cape Girardeau.

Planning for a new interstate to span the country from Virginia to California began decades ago, and lobbying efforts to persuade the federal government to study authorizing construction of a route have been going on since the 1980s.

The Transamerican Corridor Corp. is promoting a connection from Cape Girardeau to Paducah through Southern Illinois because, according to Build66.com, the route will increase roadway safety, will allow Southern Illinois better access to higher education and health care, will improve "the movement of freight and people in the region" and will "drive the economy" by creating "short-term construction and labor jobs as well as unlocking long-term economic development opportunities for the people and communities of Southern Illinois."

The route the organization favors also would shorten travel time between Cape Girardeau and Paducah from about an hour and a half to 45 minutes.

Environmentally sensitive locations in the area where the road could be built, according to documents from the Federal Highway Administration inviting agencies to participate in the statement study, include Fort Massac, Herrin Pond, Cypress Creek National Refuge and the Shawnee National Forest.

Leaders in nearby communities such as Sikeston and Poplar Bluff, Missouri, are concerned about plans for the highway and would like to see it routed to their areas instead.

There also are some apparent opponents to the study who have been sending letters to the Illinois transportation department, such as a network of residents called Citizens for Southern Illinois Against Interstate 66, who have their own website.

In a July letter to the department posted on the site citizensforsouthernillinois.org, the network expressed concerns about the potential of economic isolation and the possibility eminent domain could be used to acquire farmland for the highway. The letter claimed there will be "no upside for tourism" and that "better access" for communities "really means exporting our existing businesses, labor force, our Shawnee College students, our life blood to Paducah and Cape Girardeau."

The Illinois Department of Transportation also has a website about the study, 66Corridor.org.

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3632