I-66 supporters waiting on federal bill

Cape Girardeau civic leaders and Illinois Department of Transportation officials say a new federal highway bill being worked out now could map out an Interstate 66 route that would carry traffic through Southern Illinois and over the new Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge at Cape Girardeau. But so far there is no route-specific language in the bill taking shape in Washington.

The Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association is lobbying for an Illinois-Cape Girardeau route for the proposed east-west interstate. Executive director Mitch Robinson said federal lawmakers in the Missouri and Illinois delegations hope to add route-specific language when the highway spending bill is revised in a House-Senate conference committee.

The highway would extend from Virginia to California. One possible route runs through Paducah, Ky., crossing the existing Ohio River bridge to Metropolis, Ill., and through Cape Girardeau, Marble Hill, Springfield and Carthage in Missouri.

Another possible route would require construction of a new bridge across the Mississippi River near Wickliffe, Ky. But even as the Kentucky highway department awaits completion of a delayed study to recommend routes, Kentucky has no immediate plans to spend money on the project in western Kentucky or to build a new bridge over the Mississippi River.

Bruce Siria, project manager for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, said he hopes to have a final report from the consultant by mid-May. Kentucky is conducting the feasibility study largely with federal money. Missouri has contributed $50,000 to the study by a Louisville, Ky., consulting firm.

No matter what the study recommends, Siria said Kentucky highway officials haven't budgeted any funding.

"In the next six years we are not going to advance this project. We are sort of in a holding pattern in terms of starting new projects," he said, citing budget constraints.

The six-year spending plan also contains no money for a bridge. "We are not going to build a new bridge across the Mississippi River," Siria said.

It could be June before the massive highway spending bill is worked out and perhaps this fall before the bill gets final approval from Congress and President Bush, Robinson said.

David Phelps, assistant secretary for the Illinois Department of Transportation, said his agency is prepared to do some preliminary engineering work for a proposed I-66 route through Southern Illinois if the federal highway bill points the way.

"It is a matter of what gets out in the federal transportation bill," he said.

Phelps said IDOT has no specific route in mind between Metropolis and Cape Girardeau.

Phelps warned that the highway spending bill could get "bogged down" by election-year presidential politics.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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