Walkway would connect divided neighborhood

The fences along the new stretch of Highway 74 in Cape Girardeau tell the story of a divided neighborhood better than any newspaper article could.

They're broken down with the weight of adults and children trying to save a few minutes on a trip from their neighborhood south of the four-lane parkway to the friends and businesses on the north side. There's no quick shop or public school on the city's south side, just residences, some apartments, a rehab center, the public health center and some industry.

The neighborhood wasn't always in two parts. The division came in the early 1990s when the state bought up 56 houses and demolished them to make way for Highway 74, which is also known as Shawnee Parkway.

At the time, some forward-thinking neighbors considered what the highway would mean. Highway 74 will be the direct link between Interstate 55 and the new Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, set to open next year. City officials believe the highway will deposit visitors and their tax dollars in Cape Girardeau as well as provide easy access to the bridge for travelers who are just passing through.

Highway 74 opened in 1996. Motorists quickly came to appreciate the uninterrupted drive from Kingshighway to Sprigg Street save for the stoplight at West End Boulevard.

Many of the parkway's original neighbors are gone. As is the case in so many economically depressed neighborhoods, tenants come and go. But the ones who remain recognize the rift. And they see the fence-jumpers darting across busy Highway 74.

And the police? There's not much they can do, because there's no jaywalking law in Missouri and no way to pin property damage on a teen-ager climbing an already dilapidated fence. Officers do what they can to discourage the practice, painting a picture of what a car rolling along at 45 miles per hour or faster can do to a young man or woman caught in its path.

The solution is so obvious that one wonders why it wasn't part of the original plan. MoDOT wants to build a crosswalk over Highway 74 at Ellis Street.

It would cost about $200,000 and could possibly be finished by the end of the year.

Anyone who has traveled New Madrid Street near Southeast Missouri State University can see how convenient and aesthetically pleasing a pedestrian bridge can be.

At least one South Cape Girardeau resident is concerned that the bridge could carry a bad element to and from her neighborhood, and the concern is justified.

But certainly any negative uses for the bridge would be outweighed by the protection it would give the neighborhood's children, who can't seem to resist the temptation of darting across a fenced-off four-lane highway.

And it is a way to physically rejoin a neighborhood separated by progress.