LOOKING FOR A GOOD EAST-WEST HIGHWAY

The Missouri Transportation Department's feasibility study of an east-west route across southern Missouri should offer an opportunity to launch a serious inquiry into a plan to build the long-needed route.

No doubt the feasibility study, which is expected to take about three months, will show the same need for better roads across southern Missouri exists today as it did 25 years ago when the state proposed a program of massive road improvements that voters turned down.

The state committed to the feasibility study as part of Procter & Gamble Co.'s plan to build a $350 million plant adjacent to its factory north of Cape Girardeau. Truck and employee traffic to and from the plant puts tremendous demand on existing two-lane roads.

The study will look at three possible routes. Two would go through Southern Illinois, crossing the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau and using the four-lane Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge under construction. One would involve widening Highway 34 from here to Van Buren, where it would hook up with east-west Highway 60. The other would run south along Interstate 55, hooking up with Highway 60 at Sikeston. The third involves an interstate, which promoters envision as I-66 across the United States.

What Cape Girardeau County and places west of here and in Southern Illinois need is a four-lane highway connecting Highway 60 near Van Buren with Interstate 24 in Southern Illinois. The beginnings of such a route, which should follow Highway 34, are in the making with the relocation of Highway 74 and the new river bridge in Cape Girardeau.

The state should get Illinois involved in finding a way to provide direct access to I-24 east of Cape Girardeau. The new cross-city highway and bridge, which Illinois is helping to pay for, should serve to stimulate Illinois' interest in a link to I-24.