Transportation & Communications 

Highway System

  Served by an efficient surface transportation network, St. Francois County offers an excellent location to serve the distribution needs of business.  Four-lane divided U.S. highway 67 runs north-south through the County and intersects with Interstate-55 twenty-seven miles north of the central County area. 

Missouri Highways 47, 32 and 8 provide east-west access through the County.  Highway 32 has recently been widened and shoulders constructed from the City of Farmington to the City of Ste. Genevieve and also provides good access from the Farmington area to Interstate-55 twenty-two miles to the east.  

 

MARKET AREA

         Freight movements are becoming increasingly national and global in scope, as many domestic companies are managing worldwide production and distribution systems, often locating their production facilities in areas around the world where goods can be produced more economically.  There is also increased demand for on-time delivery of products to eliminate warehousing costs.   From a  transportation standpoint, these trends make a location in St. Francois County even more advantageous.

       Portions of 20 states, with a combined population in excess of 107 million people, are located within a 500-mile radius of the County.  The states in this market area include 43% of all U.S. retail sales and 47% of all U.S. manufacturing establishments.  Retail sales in this market area exceed $1.5 trillion.  Listed below are the mileage and estimated driving times to a number of major metropolitan areas from St. Francois County.

 

      Estimated Driving Time from St. Francois County to:  

   Source: Mapquest.com

 

                                 Motor Freight Carriers

  St. Francois County is served by a number of motor freight trucking companies which can deliver anywhere in the United States.  Listed below are the names and telephone numbers of a number of providers.

Yellow Freight System, Inc.        (800) 610-6500

ABF Freight System, Inc.            (800) 566-7418

Tidwell Express, Inc.                   (573) 783-6452

Southway Motor Express            (573) 756-2627

G & L Freight Line                       (573) 756-3090

B & L Trucking                            (573) 518-0575

                                     Rail Service

  St. Francois County is served by the Union Pacific Railroad in both the northern and southern sections and by a Union Pacific line which crosses the County from southwest to northeast with a switching point located in Bismarck.  The Union Pacific Railroad also provides access to the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad in Ste. Genevieve County

   

                                  River Transport

  Shipping by barge often offers the most economic and efficient means of shipping bulk products.  Currently the nearest public port on the Mississippi River is Bussen Public Dock located in south St. Louis County, approximately 52 miles from central St. Francois County.   The New Bourbon Regional Port Authority is in the process of developing a new  public terminal on the Mississippi River which will be located approximately 35 miles from central St. Francois County.

 

                                 Airport Facilities

  St. Francois County is served by two public use airports.  Farmington Regional Airport is owned and managed by the City of Farmington.  The facility is equipped with a 4,222' long by 75' wide lighted concrete runway.  Available services include fuel, repairs, charter flights, flight instruction and aircraft rental.  There are currently 31 aircraft based at the facility.  The Bismarck Memorial Airport, which is owned by the City of Bismarck, has a 2,050' long X 50'wide lighted asphalt runway.  Available services include fuel, minor repairs and flight instruction.

       Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, located 71 miles southeast of central St. Francois County, has two lighted concrete runways, 3,996' long X 100' wide and 6,499' long X 150' wide respectively. The facility also has an air traffic control tower and an Instrument Landing System and is the only airport in the Region that provides commercial service.  Domestic and international air service is available at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport in St. Louis.

 

                              Telecommunications

  Southwestern Bell Telephone Company provides local telephone service in St. Francois County via a #5 Electronic Switching System.  The system provides high-quality digital transmission and is engineered for less than two hours of down time in a four year period.  The system also detects trouble and repairs itself, often before a customer is aware of a problem.  Nearly all central offices are fiber optically linked.  A network modernization plan called Telefuture 2000 upgraded all central offices to digital technology in 1991.

       Plexar is a telephone-company based communications system, requiring no large capital investment for equipment on the customer’s premises.  Plexar saves money by requiring only standard telephone sets.  Additionally, repairs are extremely rapid since most can be made at the telephone company.  Plexar offers intercom calling, call hold, add-on (lets user add a third party to a telephone conversation), call pickup (lets user answer calls from another office), and call transfer (lets user transfer calls within office).  Plexar may be custom-designed to meet user needs.

       Data Transmission Services provide transmission within a given local address transport area (LATA), (essentially within a specific area code).  Interstate (or inter-lata) data transmission serves high-capacity data transmission needs to another state or LATA.

       Megalink II offers high-speed data transmission guaranteed 99.5% error-free at 56 kilobits per second (kb/s).  Megalink supports point-to-point or multi-point digital service with private lines at speeds of 2.4, 4.8, 9.6 and 56 kb/s, providing transmission within a given local access transport area (essentially within a given area code).