WORK ON FINAL PORTION OF ILLINOIS ROUTE 3 PLANNED

THEBES, Ill Work on the final 2.77 miles of relocated Highway 3, from Gale to Thebes, won't resume until the threat of flooding from the Mississippi River ends early this summer, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Transportation said last week.

The new section of highway is expected to be opened to the public some time this fall, said Jim Borgsmiller of the department's regional office at Carbondale.

Meanwhile clearing and right-of-way work for the final four-mile stretch of relocated new highway from Thebes southward to a point near Olive Branch, is expected to begin this spring.

"The second phase of the project is now 80 percent complete," said Borgsmiller. "The highway is finished from the new Sexton Creek bridge southward to the four-way stop at Thebes. All that's left is to tie the new highway in with the old highway at the curve north of Gale, near the new bridge."

Borgsmiller said the highway department wanted to start the tie-in work last fall, but decided to wait until this summer because it was going to take longer than originally planned.

"In order to tie new section of highway in with the old, we will have to cut into the Mississippi River flood protection levee at Gale," he explained. "We did not want to do that until the threat of flooding from the river is over for the year. That won't happen until some time in June. In addition, we have to obtain permission from the Army Corps of Engineers before we can cut20into the levee."

The 2.77 miles of new highway is part of a three-phase project to replace 7.5 miles of what the department calls "functionally obsolete" highway from Gale to the intersection of Twente Crossing Road, north of Olive Branch. Most of it was built in the early and mid-1930s.

The first phase of the project began several years ago with the construction of a new intersection and highway bridge into Thebes over the Southern Illinois-Missouri Bridge Company's railroad tracks to the Thebes railroad bridge.

The second phase of the project, scheduled to be completed this September, is the 2.77 miles of new highway from Gale to Thebes.

The 24-foot wide, two-lane, 14-inch-thick, highway-grade asphalt surface roadway basically follows the Illinois Central Railroad's abandoned "Mud Line" track bed that once ran from Thebes to Murphysboro. The relocated highway runs along the edge of a high bluff, and offers a view of the Mississippi River, from Grays Point to Thebes.

Borgsmiller said total cost of Phase II of the project, including the highway and bridge over Sexton Creek, is about $1.5 million.

Work on the third phase of the project started last week when bids for the project were opened in Carbondale. Borgsmiller said work on the 4.31 miles of new highway will begin this spring, weather permitting.

"The project will include earthwork, rock excavation and grading for a 24-foot wide asphalt highway with nine box culverts from Thebes junction to Twente Crossing Road," he explained. "The job has a completion date of Aug. 15, 1993."

Borgsmiller said the old sections of Highway 3 will be kept open for local traffic and residents who live along the highway.

Borgsmiller said the Thebes-to-Twente Crossing portion of the highway will probably be somewhat more difficult to complete than the Thebes to Gale stretch because the terrain is very hilly, with steep gullies that will have to be filled with rock, earth and culverts.

Estimated cost of Phase III is $4.6 million, he added.

When the entire 7.5 miles of relocated highway is completed in 1993, it will replace a road that department officials said has been functionally obsolete for 20 years.

Between 1978 and 1988, nearly 150 motor vehicle accidents occurred on the narrow, curving and hilly highway between Gale and Olive Branch. The six motor vehicle fatalities that occurred during the same time period were blamed in part on the obsolete design of the highway.

The department said most of the highway between Thebes and Olive Branch was built between 1932 and 1935.

Despite its age and condition, officials said Route 3 is still used by motorists and truckers traveling to and from I-55 at Cape Girardeau, and I-24 at Paducah. The highway also carries a lot of commuter and shopping traffic from Southern Illinois into Cape Girardeau.