CITY TO GET TRAFFIC ADVICE

Cape Girardeau city planners should learn plenty about managing traffic, planning routes to ease congestion and avoiding traffic congestion when transportation experts offer some advice tonight.

Planning commissioners are meeting with representatives from the Missouri Department of Transportation at 5 p.m. today at City Hall, 401 Independence.

The presentation Mac Finley plans to make explains how driveways affect traffic congestion along commercial routes and what measures can be tried to lessen that impact, he said.

Finley is a native of Gordonville, Mo., and knows plenty about the traffic problems in Cape Girardeau. Cape Girardeau is "living proof" that growth spurts can create traffic problems that planners never imagined, he said.

He cited Route K as an example. Trying to properly space traffic signals, time them to traffic patterns and create entrances and exits to businesses can be a planning dilemma, he said.

Many times when cities experience rapid growth, some things aren't considered, and having too many entry or exit points on busy roads create "a potential for accidents and congestion," Finley said.

"Things get to the point where the property owner realizes there is a problem often before anybody else does," he said. A joint effort is necessary to work to alleviate or eliminate some of the contributing causes, said Finley.

Missouri Department of Transportation officials often speak to cities experiencing growth about how to curb such problems with driveway entrances. The problems "are not unique to Cape Girardeau," Finley said.

While some things cannot be repaired because an area is already developed, there are options for future development, he said.

"We want to use the current infrastructure to its best possible use and not just keep sprawling. What we try to do is put all the pieces together so they can look at problem areas and possible ways to treat it," Finley said.

Some options are creating better spacing between entrances or consolidating several entry points, creating turn lanes, limiting entrances next to major intersections or intersections with signals.

"There are a lot of pressures involved with growth, and often you have to take a hard look at the big picture," Finley said. "Sometimes things happen as you go along and you can't have access without the big picture."

Limiting access and managing traffic entrances and exits is part of smart growth, Finley said.