The Missouri Department of Transportation says there are no immediate plans to extend I-72 across northern Missouri from Hannibal to St. Joseph. I-72 stretches a whopping two miles – making it the state’s shortest interstate.
Eric Schroeter, Chief Engineer and Deputy Director for MoDOT, told Missourinet that doing so would be complicated.
“One of the big changes would be, there’s no connecting of private driveways, or county roads, or state roads without an interchange to the interstate system,” he said. “There’s a whole lot of roads that would have to make big changes and private accesses that would have to change along (U.S. Highway) 36.”
Schroeter also said slow-moving farm vehicles use the current highway, U.S. 36, especially during planting and harvest seasons.
“The interstate (system) doesn’t allow for agriculture equipment on it,” he said. “It has a minimum speed limit that most agriculture equipment can’t maintain. And currently today, depending on the season on (U.S.) 36, it gets heavily used for certain — for access and farms and things of that nature.”
The minimum speed on I-72 is 40 miles per hour.
Meanwhile, State Rep. Louis Riggs, R-Hannibal, strongly supports upgrading U.S. 36 to I-72. He told Missourinet that economic development has been stymied in his district because I-72 ends almost immediately after crossing into Missouri.
“I have talked to more site selectors than you can count from across this great land. They all tell me the same thing – if you don’t have interstate access, you’re doomed,” Riggs said. “All these lovely logistics centers, 400, 500-people jobs, are not going to Northeast Missouri. Why is that? Because I don’t have an ‘I’ in front of a highway in my district.”
He cites Quincy, Illinois, just 25 miles north of Hannibal, as an example.
“Now, Amazon’s about ready to open up a nice little facility just outside Quincy, Illinois, which is on I-172,” Riggs said. “Couple of hundred jobs — those could be coming to Missouri.”
Riggs also said upgrading U.S. 36 to interstate standards would cost about a billion dollars less than it’s costing to add a third lane to I-70 between St. Louis and Kansas City.
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