Bridge-route plan is good place to start

With the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge under construction since 1996, the structure in its unfinished form seems so much a part of our lives that it is difficult to imagine cars ever crossing it.

But they will. Missouri Department of Transportation officials say the bridge will be completed in 2003. And so Old Town Cape is acting now to prevail upon the city council to provide the most desirable route between that bridge and downtown.

Old Town Cape is a government-funded group organized to promote the city's downtown area. Primarily made up of merchants, it is appropriate for the group to think of the best way to filter customers to their stores.

The route the downtown boosters have selected is the best one. After deciding that a Lorimier Street extension would cut through Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus, unfinished but certain to open at some point, they turned to Fountain Street.

Fountain currently halts its southbound journey across from City Hall on Independence Street. Under Old Town Cape's proposal, it would pick up on the south side of Indian Park at William Street and extend along the edge of the River Campus to Highway 74, the new bridge route.

But there are some details about the project that give pause.

The plan calls for three roundabouts between Highway 74 and William Street.

If the reason for the extension is to attract tourists and shoppers into downtown, it seems an unusual greeting to make them wind through three of that type of traffic-control devices. Most drivers in this area don't encounter many roundabouts.

And, arguably, our visitors would arrive at their downtown destinations much quicker were the Fountain Street extension made a through street while traffic on Jefferson Street, Morgan Oak Street and Good Hope Street stopped at the intersections.

The city council is aware of the plan, but it is important to remember that this plan is just a start.

A project as important as this one deserves careful consideration and comments from all affected.

That includes everyone who pays the city's transportation sales tax, which will fund an estimated $250,000 of the project at least, with more being paid through transportation grants.

Of course, those are taxpayer dollars too.