Motorists regularly use Kingsway Drive as a shortcut to Cape Rock Drive and a way around the traffic congestion on Kingshighway. But an $86,000 construction project this summer will eliminate the shortcut while widening Kingshighway to provide a right-turn lane.

City officials said they expect to complete the construction work by September. The Missouri Department of Transportation and the city are sharing the cost.

Kingsway Drive will end into a new cul-de-sac that will be constructed near St. Andrew Lutheran Church. The church sits just southeast of the Kingshighway and Cape Rock Drive intersection.

Kingsway Drive has to be closed to allow for the construction of a free-flowing right-turn lane to allow northbound traffic to turn onto Cape Rock Drive without backing up the traffic wanting to continue through the intersection, city officials said.

The cul-de-sac will have a 42-foot radius. It will include what new city engineer Josh Richardson calls "antlers," two spokes of pavement extending from the cul-de-sac that will provide access to church property from Kingsway Drive.

Church officials welcome the project, which complements parking and building improvements that the church plans to make. The church plans to build a two-story addition, expand parking and construct a two-way drive on the property, said lay minister Jim Hicks.

In conjunction with the street improvements, the church will get a right-turn-only entrance and exit on Kingshighway, Hicks said.

In exchange for land from the city to provide the church with direct access to Kingshighway, the church is providing the ground on which the cul-de-sac will be built, Hicks said.

"We want to be good citizens to help with the progress of Cape Girardeau," he said. "It helps solve a long-standing problem for the city of moving traffic through there."

Richardson said northbound traffic regularly backs up on Kingshighway behind motor-ists waiting to turn right onto Cape Rock Drive.

"Creating a free-flowing right-turn lane is going to alleviate a lot of the traffic," he said.

Public works director Tim Gramling said the cul-de-sac will cost about $35,000. Constructing the right-turn lane will cost about $51,000, he said.

The city is paying for the entire project. But the Missouri Department of Transportation will reimburse the city for construction of the right-turn lane on Kingshighway, which is a state route.

Asa Asphalt of Advance, Mo., will construct the cul-de-sac as part of the city's asphalt overlay program, Gramling said.

The city will bid out the right-turn-lane work within the next month, officials said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123