CAPE GIRARDEAU STREET DEPARTMENT EXPECTS TO END ROAD-STRIPING IN MONTH

If the weather cooperates, Cape Girardeau city crews should finish striping streets in about a month.

Street foreman Harry Salazar said the annual project, begun six weeks ago, was running slightly behind this year. His department had to wait for latex-based paint to arrive.

This is the first year Cape Girardeau has used the relatively new type of paint, although the state has been using it for some time. It is better, Salazar said, because crews don't have to mix it with paint thinner like they do oil-based paint. That is safer for the workers and the environment.

Repainting the stripes on city streets is a massive annual project. About 35 miles of yellow stripes must be machine-painted. Crews also repaint 69 crosswalks and countless intersections on Broadway, Independence, Sprigg, Mount Auburn, Perryville and Silver Spring.

Drivers may be a little inconvenienced by the work, Salazar said, but it is vital they pay attention to the orange cones and signs put up by the city.

"People don't always realize it is a hazard to come around the signs," he said. "Some seem to think, `I live here, I've gone this way for 15 years and I'm going to go this way now no matter what.'"

That thinking landed one driver in a hole where workers had removed a concrete slab, Salazar said.