BRIDGE FUNDING

The news about a new bridge across the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau last week was tentative at best, but at least it indicated the project is still very much alive. State highway officials said the bridge project has been put on the bidding schedule for May, even though it is likely to be removed for lack of funding.

There is an outside chance, however, that some alternate source of funding could be found. If so, highway officials want to be ready to move as quickly as possible.

The chances of getting money out of Washington right now during the budget impasse is much like squeezing water from a stone. Both Missouri and Illinois have committed their share ($6.5 million apiece) to the project. The bridge itself has an estimated price tag of $52 million, but connecting highways and other improvements raise the total anticipated cost to nearly $86 million.

Part of the highway work, the new stretch of Highway 74 between Spring Street and Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau, has just opened. The state is moving ahead on additional work to extend the highway all the way to I-55 and, eventually, to hook up with the new bridge.

Congressman Bill Emerson's office is optimistic that the bridge funding will be approved early in the next session of Congress that starts in 1997. While that means several more months of waiting and hoping -- with presidential and congressional elections in between -- there is still a good likelihood that the bridge project will hit the fast track.

Even if everything falls into place, of course, the bridge project will take several years to complete. It isn't likely any motorists will be crossing the river on a new Cape Girardeau bridge in this century.

Still, the news that the bridge project is still on a front burner is welcome. Too often when there is little activity with an undertaking of this magnitude, it is easy to start thinking the plans are simply gathering dust on a shelf somewhere.