Cape Girardeau voters overwhelmingly approved a transportation sales tax Tuesday that will fund 20 road and bridge projects.

Voters approved the half-cent, five-year sales tax by a 1,638-vote margin, 68 percent to 32 percent.

The measure passed 3,124 to 1,486. It carried in all but two of Cape Girardeau's 16 precincts. In many precincts, it carried by wide margins.

The victory was sweet for civic leaders who had been frustrated by back-to-back defeats of transportation tax measures in 1986 and 1987.

"I am just ecstatic," said tax proponent Harry Rediger after election officials tallied the votes in a room at the Arena Building. "I think it was very much needed."

Rediger is chairman of the city's Planning and Zoning Commission, which helped develop the tax plan.

He said he was surprised by the margin of victory.

But Mayor Al Spradling III said the tax plan had broad-based support.

"We did this as a community effort," he said.

Vision 2000, a community-minded organization, the Chamber of Commerce, the city of Cape Girardeau and the Planning and Zoning Commission backed the plan.

Councilman Melvin Gateley said it is hard to compare Tuesday's vote with previous transportation tax elections.

"The projects were different. The approach was different. It is just better maybe not to look back, but to go forward," he said.

For Rediger, the only frustration was the fact that only 4,610 voters went to the polls. That is only about 22 percent of Cape Girardeau's more than 20,000 registered voters.

Still, Rediger said voter turnout was higher than the 15 to 20 percent that tax supporters had hoped for.

The Transportation Trust Committee acknowledged voter apathy head-on in its campaign commercials. "There are a lot of reasons for people not to vote," Rediger said.

The money from the sales tax will go into a trust fund where it can be used only for roads, bridges and sidewalks. Rediger said the trust fund was a key factor in selling voters on the tax.

The tax will take effect Jan. 1. The sales tax will expire after five years unless voters extend it.

The tax would raise an estimated $17 million for projects ranging from the reconstruction of sections of Perryville Road to the paving of gravel streets.