NEED FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION RECURRING SUBJECT OF VISION 2000

Requests for safer streets, traffic-light arrows at strategic locations and a public transportation system -- recurring themes in this forum on transportation needs -- marked the fourth Vision 2000 public meeting Tuesday.

The 10 Cape Girardeau citizens who participated in Tuesday's meeting at the First Baptist Church said public transportation is the biggest concern followed by access to West End Boulevard and Independence and William streets from key intersections.

Other streets in which citizens expressed interest include Bloomfield, Perryville and Mount Auburn roads.

Reconstruction of Perryville Road is part of the city's capital improvement plan through the 1997-98 fiscal year. Phase II of Bloomfield Road is scheduled to be completed by 1995-96. Other projects involving Bloomfield Road are scheduled to resume in 1997-98 and 1998-99.

Every project after the 1995-96 fiscal year will be up for review by the planning and zoning commission. The planning and zoning commission will make its recommendation to the city council, which votes on each new capital improvement plan.

"We're seeing different people at each meeting, but it seems like public transportation is an issue the city council will have to look at in the near future," Vision 2000 transportation committee chairman Melvin Gateley said.

Gateley said he is hoping to get input from 300 citizens before taking his findings to the city council. The next Vision 2000 transportation meeting is Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Westminster Presbyterian Church, 1820 Perryville Road.

Public input at the meetings could result in immediate action. City planning coordinator Ken Eftink said he would seek a traffic report from the Cape Girardeau police to see if a stop sign was needed at Good Hope and Plaza Way.

Suzanne Holland, director of children's programs for the Easter Seal Society in Cape Girardeau, said a stop sign was needed for traffic heading west at the corner of Good Hope and Plaza Way. Holland said some of the children she works with are deaf and would be safer entering and leaving the facility at 316 S. Plaza Way.

"If the police think there should be a stop sign there, they will recommend it to the city council," Eftink said.

Public transportation came up on more than one occasion at Tuesday's meeting.

Local NAACP President Dawn Evans said she knows of elderly people who must walk in extreme temperatures to shop or see their doctor because their monthly allotment of taxi coupons has run out.

"It seems like it would be much easier and cheaper for people to use a bus transfer so that they could afford go to more than one place on a given day," Evans said.

Holland said a public transportation system would help families get to and from the Easter Seal office.

"We had a bus system when I was growing up in Cape Girardeau during the '50s, and it worked well," Gateley said. "But with more and more cars being used, the city no longer supported it. Maybe it's time to look into some type of public transportation, with the way the city is growing."