After securing federal funding the Illinois Department of Transportation hopes a formal study of the best corridor for the new highway connecting Cape Girardeau and Paducah, Ky. will begin in March.

One possible route for the proposed highway, dubbed Interstate 66, would connect Interstate 55 to Interstate 24, cutting travel time between the cities from an hour and a half to about 45 minutes.

"It is unbelievably beneficial to many of our local industries and distribution places that ship east out of here, in terms of the cost savings," said John Mehner, president of the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce.

Retailers in Paducah and Cape Girardeau would benefit, as people would be more likely to travel for shopping from city to city, Mehner said. Towns along the route in Southern Illinois would stand to benefit from the increased traffic, he said.

Carrie Nelsen, IDOT program development engineer, on Wednesday said the department is waiting for federal authorization for consultants hired to study route concepts to begin work. An environmental-impact statement is required by law before a corridor can be selected for the new 40- to 50-mile stretch of road that will cross five Southern Illinois counties. Illinois' transportation department is leading the study because the connecting route would have to travel through the state.

The consulting firms Horner & Shifrin Inc. and Bernardin, Lochmueller and Associates were chosen last year to complete the study, which was supposed to begin last July and take 2 1/2 years to complete. It will be funded by a $3.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation and a 20 percent match from IDOT generating a total of $4.5 million available for the project.

Actual funds spent will depend on the costs associated with the selected corridor, Nelsen said.

"Once we get the consultant on board, we will be lining out those initial stakeholder meetings, we will be setting up our kickoff public meeting and starting the public involvement process," Nelson said.

One of possible corridors could include the U.S. 51 Ohio River bridge -- also known as the Cairo bridge -- between Wickliffe, Ky., and Cairo, Ill., Nelson said.

However, the possible need to build a new bridge structure there would be taken into consideration when weighing the cost of that corridor against other possibilities, she said. The 76-year-old cantilever bridge, which carries U.S. 60 and U.S. 62, has been termed "functionally obsolete," meaning it is outdated. The Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, a cable-stay bridge that replaced an outdated structure similar to the Cairo bridge and cost an estimated $100 million, opened to traffic in 2003 and could be incorporated in an alternate plan.

"All different types of stakeholders" have expressed interest in the project, Nelsen said. As a result, IDOT has developed an email list and anyone interested in receiving updates can email Valerie.Rolla@illinois.gov to be added to the list.

The Interstate 66 project through Southern Illinois is part of the East-West Transamerica Corridor, a national transportation plan first studied in the 1980s that would start in San Diego and end in Norfolk, Va.

salderman@semissourian.com

388-3646

Pertinent address:

Cape Girardeau, MO

Wickliffe, KY

Paducah, KY