Less hazardous optional route between Chester, Ill and Farmington, MO

[pgash]

The AC Trans Am route #9 between Farmington, MO and Chester, Ill crosses a long narrow two lane
bridge over the Mississippi River which often has heavy truck traffic. Much of the route on to Farmington is along narrow and shoulder less two lane MO county roads which pass thru the very hilly Ozark winemaking region that draws moderate wine taster traffic on the weekends.


A less hazardous optional route is Hwy 32 between Ste. Genevieve and Farmington, cross the Mississippi on the ferry at Ste. Genevieve, from Modoc go south on  very low traffic side roads
which avoid Hwy 3 in Ill, and parallel the river on to Chester.
A detailed route  is found at: www.crazyguyonabike.com -> Forums -> pgash -> Forums 8.

Happy Trails...

pgash

[John Nettles]

What is interesting is, if my memory is correct, the TransAm actually did this route or at least crossed at St. Genevieve decades ago.  I wonder why they changed it.

BTW, your link only went to the main page of CG, not your specific route.

[John Nelson]

Here's a direct link to Phil's route.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/forum/board/message/?message_id=231961

I did the regular ACA route last year and had no problems with it. Except for the bridge itself (which I did early in the morning), it all seemed very tame. I cannot, however, compare it to Phil's proposed route.

[John Nettles]

I am like you in that I did the official route.

However, after doing a bit of quick research, I noticed that Phil's route has up to 10 times the traffic according to the Missouri Bike Federation map http://mobikefed.org/files/d10trafficcount.pdf.  You need to enlarge the map a lot to see the numbers.

While MO-32 has a nice shoulder and fairly nice sight lines, it does have traffic averages of over 4,300 to 7,300 cars per day compared to 412 to 786 per day (on narrower more-curvy no-shoulder roads) on the official route.  I love ferries and think Phil's route is a possible alternative but would probably recommend sticking to the original route due to significantly lower traffic counts.  I would rather deal with 16 cars an hour passing me (on average) than 152 even with a shoulder.  

Just my two cents.

[JHamelman]

Hi pgash and John,

Thanks for your discussion on the routing between Chester and Farmington. I'm not sure how much of the suggested re-route was once the TransAm route (my memory is not as good as John's and my usual resource is on vacation). I will file the info and put the topic on the table for the next reprint. If we decide to make a route change and need more information regarding current services and road conditions, I may get in touch with you later this year.

Thanks,
.Jennifer.

[staehpj1]

FWIW, I rode the TA as mapped in the section and found it to be fine.  My that was that the bridge was not the nicest, but wasn't all that bad and the rest of the roads were just fine.

[pgash]

Hi All
    Thanks for your comments and criticisms.

Please note that I have been able to post a Google map of the route from Modoc, Ill to Chester, Ill.
Modoc, Ill is the first town (village) on the Ill side of the river once you get off the ferry.
The post is on www.crazyguyonabike.com ->Forums ->Navigation Tools ->Google Bike Maps & Instructions.

Google Bike Maps allows one to email a package of a map, photos of important intersections,
and route instructions. The package contents is all that is needed to establish and communicate a route to other cyclist.  My question is there any portion this AC web site  which can accept and post those Google packages ?

pgash

[FredHiltz]

Nothing now that I know of. That package sounds rather large for the small server that our organization uses.

How about posting the Google Maps link to the route you made, from which anyone who wants can get the rest? Copy the link just above where the Map / Satellite / Terrain buttons are on your map and paste it into a message. Then select it there and click the Insert Hyperlink icon in the row of buttons above the message.

Fred

[pgash]

Fred

    Thanks for hint, the map plus instructions are in the URL below:

http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=modoc,il&daddr=37.97715,-89.91908+to:37.92347,-89.85921+to:37.90483,-89.83462+to:chester,il&hl=en&sll=37.983175,-89.929276&sspn=0.262485,0.425034&geocode=FciiRAIdqyOi-il9cz4kM4DYhzH-RAL7Ylk3Rg%3BFT58QwIdmPGj-ik_TnCprCx2iDGJMaLWHaRdqQ%3BFY6qQgIddtuk-iknKTSMb9J3iDHPSDKWnjs6BA%3BFb5hQgIdhDul-imvK5a_6M13iDHQYD7MLJRkhQ%3BFT-EQgIdnmyl-illh8ltwM13iDEBTYUOl4nsfQ&vpsrc=0&mra=dpe&mrsp=3&sz=11&via=1,2,3&z=11

    The Google map making feature which includes personal notes, plus icons , directions
and is searchable does not include the directions between the points, hence I have stuck
using the URL of the normal Google map with directions.

pgash

[pgash]

Here is more info on the  Farmington to Chester route. The AC route is   46 miles with
about 2000 ft of climbing. On the suggested less hazardous route ( Farmington -> Ste. Genevieve ->Modoc->Chester) the milage is 51 with about 1800 ft of climbing ( 1200 ft to Ste. Gen and 600 ft
from Modoc to Chester). Milage and climb data is from RideWithGPS.com
There is virtually no traffic on the 18 mile Modoc to Chester route, it is along the river and
most of it is shaded. It also lets you avoid Hwy3 which is narrow and carries a lot of traffic in and out of Chester.

pgash