LETTERS: OTHER HIGHWAY PRIORITIES

To the editor:

In your lead editorial, the Southeast Missourian urged support for a proposed Oak Ridge interchange. While it is apparent that an interchange at Oak Ridge would be desirable for all of the reasons articulated in your editorial, may I respectfully suggest that your editorial truly misses the mark.

First, it fails to consider, much less analyze, the history of this interchange. This is important in two particulars: First, because Oak Ridge had an opportunity to have this very interchange as a part of the original I-55 construction and rejected it, and, second, because what would have been the Oak Ridge interchange became the Apple Creek interchange. By ignoring this history, your paper loses sight of and fails to call the county commission's attention to the reality that the interchange at Apple Creek has simply not produced the kind of economic development and growth your editorial would anticipate at Oak Ridge. Thus, the future of the town might be overstated.

While it would be nice, for example, to have ambulance service interconnection at Oak Ridge, this benefit leads to an incomplete consideration. By this I mean simply that the editorial ignores reality. There is a limited amount of money for highway improvements.

Given that, should the $2 million be spent at Oak Ridge to build an interchange for a community that once rejected it -- an interchange which we know will not produce economic benefits that are touted, or should the $2 million be spent elsewhere, for example on an access road between Scott City and Cape Girardeau so that the people in Illmo-Scott City-Chaffee have an actual ambulance access to Cape Girardeau. Give the number of accidents, the number of injury accidents and the relative populations, what would be the greater good?

Again, considering the greater good for the greater number, would the money not be better spent at the East Main extension interchange at I-55 between Jackson and Cape for exactly the same reasons?

Your editorial also fails to consider how far $2 million would go. At Oak Ridge, the interchange is opposed by the families owning all four corners. At the Cape-Jackson interchange (East Main extension), at least three of the four corners would be donated. Between Cape Girardeau and Scott City, portions of right-of-way already exist with promises of donations of others.

In sum and substance, your editorial, while noble in intention, is shortsighted in vision.

The people in Oak Ridge are nice, and they deserve a good road system just like everyone else. However, the road system proposed there simply will not benefit enough people to warrant the expenditure.

JOHN L. OLIVER JR.

Cape Girardeau

EDITOR'S NOTE: John Oliver is a former member of the Missouri State Highway Commission.