City of Cape Girardeau explores options to help south side

Highway 74, which connects Missouri and Illinois via the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, also divides the north and south sides of Cape Girardeau. The bisection has led to economic downturn in one area of the city, a problem city officials are hoping to use grant funds to study how to fix.

The Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program is a part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed by Congress in 2021. The $550 billion legislation created a slew of programs and historic investments into transportation systems around the country spread out over the next four years.

The pilot program is a competitive award grant designed to help communities renovate, retrofit or even remove highways to help ease or remove their division. The grant is 80% federally funded with a 20% match requirement from the city. Cape Girardeau officials are seeking $120,000 to fund a study to come up with solutions to reconnect the north and south sides of the city. The $30,000 match from the city would come from the sixth iteration of the Transportation Trust Fund.

Alex McElroy, grant coordinator and executive director of the Southeast Metropolitan Planning Organization, is putting the application together. It requires numerous letters of support and approval from the Cape Girardeau City Council, which was received at last week's meeting.

McElroy said he's awaiting a letter from the Missouri Department of Transportation and then the application will be ready to submit.

If Cape Girardeau receives the grant, city officials will conduct the study in a similar fashion to the one recently completed and published on a possible marina in Cape Girardeau. An outside engineering firm will be hired to complete analysis and present various options to city officials for decision-making. McElroy said the alternatives could include adding more pedestrian bridges or expanding current roadways, but that the removal of the highway is likely not a viable one.

The roadway was originally built in the 1920s and was rerouted in the early 2000s to connect with the Emerson Bridge that stretches across the Mississippi River. The highway averages more than 10,000 passengers daily.

The divide displaced residents of the southside from necessities present on the north, including grocery stores, health care facilities and schools, among other things. Neighborhoods on the southside of Cape Girardeau have a concentrated poverty rate three times higher than the Cape GIrardeau County average.

The city has taken steps to remedy this issue, investing in a pedestrian bridge over the highway and extending College Avenue complete with sidewalk infrastructure from South West End Boulevard to Minnesota Avenue.

The Cape Girardeau School District is completing construction of a public pool at Jefferson Elementary and the Saint Francis Foundation has purchased 16 acres at the intersection of South West End and Highway 74 for an urban farm, farmers market and affordable housing development, among other things.

These developments will only increase the need for more mobility access across the highway, McElroy said in the City Council agenda.

"Pursuing transportation remedies to enhance mobility options for those affected by the bisecting roadway will enhance the quality of life for Cape Girardeau residents," McElroy said in the meeting agenda.

The deadline to submit the application is Oct. 13 and McElroy said he expects to hear back sometime in December or January.