JACKSON NEEDS BYPASS TO HELP RELIEVE TRAFFIC

While Jackson can look forward to relieving some traffic congestion with the new Interstate 55 interchange with East Main Street, officials of the growing community realize other road improvements are needed as well.

The city has formed a Major Street Construction Priority Committee to evaluate traffic problems, and the committee is expected to recommend that a consultant be hired toward that end.

The Jackson Planning and Zoning Commission adopted a list of street improvement priorities which the committee is expected to closely follow, and high on the list is a bypass from the highways 72-34 intersection west of town through the southern part of the city. The thinking is the bypass would carry traffic that passes through Jackson, thereby eliminating much of the traffic along Highway 34-72 through west Jackson.

The state in recent years has reviewed a number of bypass possibilities -- some good and some bad -- but Jackson has rejected them. The first was in the early 1970s, when Jackson favored instead the widening of U.S. 61 from Interstate 55 through Jackson. The latest proposals included a number of options, but Jackson favored instead the widening of Highway 34-72 through west Jackson, which the state plans to widen.

A bypass that carries traffic from the Highway 34-72 intersection eastward to U.S. 61 near I-55 appears to be a good way to relieve the traffic that passes through town.