I-55 INTERCHANGE AT SCOTT CITY SHOULD HAVE TOP PRIORITY

The Missouri Department of Transportation is seeking input on Interstate 55 traffic between Scott City and Cape Girardeau. The department has held meetings in Scott City and Cape Girardeau to gather ideas. Among the suggestions have been adding a lane or lanes to I-55, building a road between the two cities and building a road north out of Scott City to the new extension of Nash Road (Route AB) just north of Scott City.

The department saw a need to do something following a study that found much of the traffic on I-55 between Scott City and Cape Girardeau is local traffic. The department is only in the preliminary stages. Only suggestions are being sought. The department says the soonest anything might be done is five years, and it could be as long as 15 years.

Interstate 55 between Scott City and Cape Girardeau may carry a lot of local traffic, but the volume is nowhere near heavy enough to justify spending millions of dollars on another highway. In 1995, the stretch of I-55 between Scott City and Nash Road carried an average 31,320 vehicles daily. I-55 between Nash Road northward to Route 74 carried an average 39,790 vehicles. By interstate standards those volumes are not so heavy as to create a need for a new highway or additional I-55 lanes.

Neither should the threat that I-55 could be temporarily closed because of an accident be considered so serious that an alternate Scott City-to-Cape Girardeau route is necessary. The fact that I-55 once closed in the 1980s because of a tanker truck accident shouldn't be of primary concern.

Instead attention needs to be turned to the ill-designed I-55 interchange with Routes K, M and 61 at Scott City. It is confusing and congested in spite of the department's attempts a few years ago to cure traffic problems there with the addition of traffic signals. Redesign of the interchange should come before any other improvement.

Work soon will be completed on the extension of Nash Road between I-55 and the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority northeast of Scott City. When finished, the highway will provide a straight east-west corridor only a short distance north of Scott City. Scott City officials have suggested a highway be built northward from Scott City to the new Nash Road. It is a logical and much less expensive approach to providing another means of heading north out of Scott City.