Work continues on planning for the Interstate 66 corridor to connect Paducah to Cape Girardeau.
The Illinois Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting later this month. The I-66 corridor would span many southern Illinois counties including Massac, Pulaski and Union. The route could cut travel time from Paducah to Cape by nearly 45 minutes. It would connect Paducah with Interstate 55.
I-DOT Engineer Carrie Nelson says an open house at Shawnee Community College on July 24th will address some of the proposed routes and environmental impacts of the freeway. The open house style meeting will run from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm in the Shawnee College Gymnasium.
The U.S. Department of Transportation approved more than 3.5 million dollars to complete the study and planning phase of the corridor. I-66 is part of the East-West Transamerica corridor, originally proposed in the 1980's. When finished, it would provide a high flow freeway running from Virginia to Kansas.
