Broadway reopens

At 5 p.m. Monday, Broadway in Cape Girardeau reopened to two-way traffic, and community leaders hope the project will put a prettier face on one of the area's essential arteries to downtown.

"My hope is that the corridor from Kingshighway to the river will be greatly improved. With the university entrance there, so many people use it as the main way to get downtown," said councilman Matt Hopkins. Hopkins pointed to the university entrance at Henderson Avenue and Pagliai's Pizza's recent remodeling as evidence of an economic domino effect on the street.

The stretch of Broadway between Perryville Road and West End Boulevard was closed for 50 days beginning Jan. 29. Motorists used a detour taking them along Parkview Drive if traveling westbound and along Independence Street if eastbound.

This was the first of a two-phase $1.43 million project paid for with Transportation Trust Fund dollars. The completed stretch of Broadway is now widened by 12 feet.

The second phase of the project will last 90 days and will widen Broadway from West End Boulevard to Park Avenue. It will also add new left-turn only lanes at Clark Street. Two-way traffic will continue along Broadway, with construction workers removing existing retaining walls to widen the intersection at Clark Avenue.

City engineer Jay Stencel said the widening east of West End Boulevard is already about 75 percent complete. He said this was the first time a major road in Cape Girardeau has ever been closed for construction, and he likes the results.

"It worked really well. This is the safest way to perform a reconstruction project," he said. "We had zero incidents, you keep traffic away from workers on detour routes, you save money and you definitely save time. This project probably would have taken six months otherwise."

Stencel hopes the reopened stretch of road will alleviate a bottleneck that had developed at the university. He said there have been some glitches with the traffic signal at Broadway and West End Boulevard, and motorists may wait longer than normal. However, these problems, Stencel said, will be fixed in the next few days.

Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce president John Mehner hopes the new route will be both safer and better.

"Access is important and we know that for most local people Broadway is how they get downtown," he said, adding that by eliminating the deceptive turn lanes near the university entrance at Henderson, traffic flow will be smoother and accidents avoided.

Cape Girardeau Area Magnet executive director Mitch Robinson said an improved downtown artery should lead to further redevelopment of storefronts in the "uptown district" of Broadway.

Mayor Jay Knudtson said the project is a good one, but likely not transformative to the area. He hopes people look at it as one more use of Transportation Trust Fund dollars.

"This is part and parcel of a number of projects and road improvements that citizens are able to see thanks to TTF. That fund has just been so critical to the support and development of our city," he said.

A ceremony commemorating the opening is scheduled for 4 p.m. today at the Southeast Missouri Hospital parking lot at the corner of West End Boulevard and Broadway.

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245