LET'S GET GOING ON ROUNDABOUT IMPROVEMENTS

Now that the Cape Girardeau City Council has decided what to do about the town's first roundabout, which is only three-fourths utilized at this point, let's hope workers show up soon to expeditiously widen the traffic circle.

For weeks, the new roundabout at Gordonville Road and Silver Springs Road has been cut off from the new extension of Silver Springs Road that connects to heavily traveled William Street. That's because in addition to adding a traffic novelty to the city's street landscape, the roundabout also has managed to add more than its share of brickbats, which are not to be confused with the confounded buffer ledge that protects the center of the roundabout and isn't even made of brick, even though it looks like it.

Indeed, if evidence is needed about the roundabout's major shortcoming -- it's too small -- just look at the fake-brick buffer ledge and see where chunks of concrete already have been broken off by passing vehicles.

The city needs the access provided by the new part of Silver Springs Road that extends all the way from William Street to Independence Street. The sooner modifications are made to the roundabout -- estimates are the expansion will take four weeks and $10,000 -- the sooner motorists will have, for the first time, an opportunity to truly evaluate a traffic circle at a four-way intersection.