CITY DEFENDS FOUR-WAY AT MOUNT AUBURN, HOPPER

Motorists who regularly race along busy Mount Auburn Road may grumble at the new stop signs that have them braking at the new Hopper Road intersection, but city officials insist it's a matter of safety.

Mayor Al Spradling III said it's the best solution, short of installing another roundabout.

"Hopper and Mount Auburn would have been a beautiful location for a roundabout, but we are not going to do it there," Spradling said.

Cape Girardeau City Councilman Frank Stoffregen successfully fought to turn the intersection into a four-way stop after the new extension of Hopper Road west of Mount Auburn opened earlier this spring. The city turned the intersection into a four-way stop last week on orders from the city council.

J.W. Armbruster welcomed the new stop signs. Armbruster lives at 3269 Hopper Road, just east of the Mount Auburn Road intersection.

Armbruster said it used to be difficult to turn left onto Mount Auburn Road from Hopper Road or to walk across the thoroughfare. "You had to just sit out there and wait your turn," he said.

It was even worse for pedestrians. "You could hardly walk across it," he said.

With Hopper now extended west of the intersection, traffic has increased at the intersection, he said. The four-way stop has helped Hopper Road traffic, he said.

Stoffregen said the city's engineering department hadn't planned on a four-way stop, contending that the traffic count didn't warrant it. Stop signs initially were placed only on Hopper Road.

But the councilman said traffic on Mount Auburn Road made it hazardous for children crossing the road on foot or on bicycle, as well as for eastbound and westbound motorists on Hopper Road trying to make left turns at the intersection.

Stoffregen said the city encouraged pedestrian and bicycle traffic by putting sidewalks along Hopper Road leading up to the intersection and including a special pedestrian lane on a nearby bridge.

"We put a bicycle and pedestrian lane on that bridge, and then we have them crossing a four-way intersection with no stop signs," the councilman said.

Stoffregen has heard from motorists who don't like the added stop signs. "I told them to get over it," he said.