CITY SEEKS TO SPEED UP TRUST FUND ROAD WORK

Cape Girardeau city officials want to speed up the process on completing Transportation Trust Fund projects.

So the City Council has amended the trust fund program to allow work to start on any of the designated projects as soon as the property for that project is acquired.

Cape Girardeau residents designated 15 road construction and improvement projects to be funded through the transportation sales tax enacted in 1995.

The projects are listed in order of priority, but the council's actions mean construction won't have to wait on one project while the wrinkles are being ironed out on another project that is higher on the list.

All of the projects will still be completed within the promised five-year period, say city officials.

"We're currently working at some point or other on projects 5 through 13," said Brian Strickland of the city's engineering department. "Those projects are in various stages of engineering design, land acquisition, things like that. What we don't want to do is delay a project that is ready to go."

The project to widen Broadway from Clark Street to Perry Avenue -- project 9 on the list -- is a good example, Strickland said.

"We currently have two commitments from property owners that we're waiting on from the 30 or so affected, and Broadway, with a few minor design changes, is going to be ready to bid out," he said. "But we've still got Hopper Road, Silver Springs and Bloomfield phase 1 in front of it that would technically hold it up."

The change means work can start on Broadway even if the other projects are held up by problems with land acquisition or other issues, he said.

Because the project list is so long, said Councilman Richard Eggimann, who proposed the change, it's important to keep work moving as quickly as possible.

"Some of the things take so long, and they're beginning to clog up and we'll never get it all done otherwise," Eggimann said. "In the last two years of the project, it's going to be a mess if we don't expedite it."