SEVERAL HIGHWAY, BRIDGE PROJECTS PLANNED

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- The Missouri Highway and Transportation Department plans to spend over $8 million on bridge and highway construction and traffic-safety improvements in the Cape Girardeau area during the next two years.

Another $4.4 million worth of repairs and improvements also is planned in other parts of Southeast Missouri.

Some of the work has already started, but most of the projects will begin later this year, H.E. ("Bob") Sfreddo, department District 10 engineer at Sikeston, said Thursday.

The projects include construction of a Highway 25 traffic bridge over the Diversion Channel south of Dutchtown, and signalization and intersection improvements at Route K and Silver Springs Road, Route K and Mount Auburn Road, and North Kingshighway and its intersections with Route W and Mount Auburn Road, all in Cape Girardeau.

Other work in the immediate area includes resurfacing of Route K from Interstate 55 west to Highway 25 at Gordonville, and the addition of a left-turn lane at the Route K-Highway 25 intersection.

A highlight of this year's work is the replacement of the narrow, obsolete, 60-year-old Highway 25 bridge over the Diversion Channel south of Dutchtown.

Sfreddo said bridge construction alone will cost an estimated $3.4 million, with another $2.5 million for bridge approaches and relocation of Highway 25 from Dutchtown to Blomeyer.

Sfreddo said the bridge and approaches will be 1.4 miles in length and the bridge itself will extend 1,472 feet across the channel and its immediate floodplain. The new span will be 40-feet wide with two, 12-foot driving lanes and eight-foot-wide shoulders.

The existing bridge is only 22 feet wide and has no shoulders. It has concrete bridge piers, but the approach spans have aging, wooden timbers.

Sfreddo said the project won't be completed until fall 1992. It will be funded with federal and state highway funds.

In Cape Girardeau, $120,000 will be spent to install traffic signals and make minor intersection modifications at the intersection of Route K and Silver Springs Road.

"This is an important project because of the amount of traffic that uses the intersection," Sfreddo said. "It will allow motorists to make left turns off Route K and Silver Springs Road more safely."

Sfreddo said during high-density traffic periods, vehicles often back up in the left-turn lane on Route K while waiting to turn onto Silver Springs Road. At the same time, drivers have to dart across at least three lanes of traffic to make a left turn westward on Route K from Silver Springs Road.

The task becomes even more hazardous during rush-hour periods because of the volume of westbound high-speed traffic coming over the steep hill to the east of the Silver Springs intersection. Visibility to the east is also restricted by the hill.

Sfreddo said the traffic signals will be similar to those installed at the Route K-South Kingshighway intersection. Cost of the project will be shared: 25 percent from the state and city of Cape Girardeau and 50 percent from private sources.

The Silver Springs Road intersection project will begin late this summer.

At the Route K and Mount Auburn intersection, Sfreddo said right-turn lanes will be added on Route K, with somewhat shorter right-turn and yield-right-of-way exits off of Mount Auburn. The traffic signals already there will be permanently mounted on poles. Estimated cost of the project is $424,000. Work should begin about October, Sfreddo said.

The other major intersection project in Cape Girardeau this year is on North Kingshighway at the Mount Auburn and Route W intersections near Cape La Croix Creek.

"We're going to square up the intersection so that Mount Auburn Road and the extension of Lexington Street come together at North Kingshighway, and install traffic signals at the new intersection," Sfreddo explained. "The project will include construction of a new span bridge over Cape La Croix Creek."

Sfreddo explained Route W will tie into Lexington Street just before Lexington crosses the creek over the new bridge to intersect with North Kingshighway.

Sfreddo said the present Route W intersection, which is south of the Mount Auburn intersection, will be closed. Kingsway Drive, which now intersects with Route W, will curve northward to intersect with Lexington and Route W.

"We're tickled pink over this one," Sfreddo said. "It has been needed for a long time. I'm just glad we could work it out with the city."

Cost of the project is estimated at $700,000. Cape Girardeau will provide 75 percent of the cost, using Federal Aid Urban funding, and the state will provide the remaining 25 percent, Sfreddo said.

The Route K overlay project will include asphalt resurfacing of five miles of roadway from I-55 west to the Highway 25 intersection at Gordonville, at a cost of $777,000.

In addition, a left-turn lane will be constructed on Highway 25 at the Route K intersection to allow motorists to make left turns off Highway 25 onto Route K. The crushed-stone shoulders of the five miles of roadway will also be stabilized with asphalt.

Other area asphalt resurfacing work this summer includes: one mile of Route PP from Highway 34 in Jackson, south to the city limits; five miles of Highway 34 from Route 72 to Route UU; 3.3 miles of Highway 34 in Bollinger County, from Route 72 to Route ZZ; and 18 miles of Highway 51 from Route 34 to Route 72.

In Scott City, the state will resurface the I-55 North Outer Road before turning it over to Scott City for future maintenance.

Sfreddo said with the exception of the Highway 25 bridge project the rest of the local projects are not large in scope. But, he said, "All are badly needed to improve traffic flow and safety in and near the city."

A project already in progress is at the Highway 77 overpass over the Cotton Belt Railroad tracks north of Chaffee. The state will spend about $800,000 to repair all four sides of the earthen embankment approaches to the overpass.

The project will hopefully resolve a slide problem that has existed on the four sides of the bridge approach for several years.

Other work scheduled this year in the district includes a $1 million project to sandblast and repaint the Chester, Ill., traffic bridge, remove the old toll house in Chester, and make other repairs and improvements to the west approach to the bridge. Sfreddo said the department is considering resurfacing the Missouri approach to the bridge.

The cost of the work will be shared by Missouri and Illinois, with Missouri being responsible for contracting and supervising the job.

Sfreddo said the Chester bridge project will begin sometime this fall. "There will be some traffic disruption when the painting begins because only one lane on the bridge will be open," Sfreddo said.

Another project already underway is a $2.3 million improvement at the Interstate 55 Bloomsdale rest area. Sfreddo said the project, which includes construction of larger restroom facilities and the parking area, should be completed sometime in July. The funding is 90 percent federal and 10 percent state.