Cape City Council OKs two-way traffic on downtown street

The Cape Girardeau City Council approved two-way traffic on Main Street Tuesday night, though it's not yet known when the one-way street will be restriped into two 10.5-foot lanes.

The decision, which may have become a foregone conclusion in recent weeks, was not always so assured.

"If I could have ever thought that we'd be sitting here with endorsements from Bowen [Engineering and Surveying Inc.], with endorsements from the out-of-town consultants, with endorsements from Old Town Cape, with endorsements from downtown redevelopment, and a 9-0 vote from P and Z, I would have bet somebody $100 that that wouldn't have happened," said Mayor Jay Knudtson in the study session. "The consensus is undeniable."

Planning and Zoning chairman Skip Smallwood said his commission's earlier approval has several caveats. Among them were restriping the municipal parking lot to include an exit facing Merriwether Street and designating another parking lot on the north end of downtown, possibly at the current location of the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Council members were receptive to all of the commission's recommendations, but not yet prepared to designate the CVB space as a future parking lot. "We need to allow for staff to do research on this," Knudtson said. "I do believe that the highest and best use [is a parking lot], but that is something we need to think more about."

One thing all agreed on was that when Main Street becomes two-way, parking and loading restrictions must be enforced.

"We're going to have to enforce this," said Skip Smallwood of the four 24-hour commercial loading zones to be designated on Main Street. "There has to be signage, there has to be striping. ... There's going to be ticketing and towing."

Councilwoman Loretta Schneider said the time of all-day parking on Main Street is past. "Two-hour parking needs to be enforced," she said. "I know from talking to some of the merchants that there are employees that work down there and park all day."

Must modernize well field

In other business, a representative from Waters Engineering said the well field intended to meet the city's water needs is no longer adequate. Currently, the city gets 80 percent of its water from the well field and 20 percent from the Mississippi River.

The city will seek funding from the DNR State Revolving Funds to modernize the well field in the next 18 months to two years.

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245