MORE DISCUSSION NEEDED ON INTERSECTION

For the approximately 15,000 motorists who go through the Sprigg Street intersection with Normal Avenue near the Southeast Missouri State University campus, there may not appear to be any problems with traffic flow. Currently motorists must stop going east or west on Normal at Sprigg, while vehicles on Sprigg going north or south don't have to stop.

But university officials say there is a need for more traffic control at the intersection. They say they are concerned about walking students who use the intersection, and they are concerned about access for shuttle buses. The university's maintenance building for the buses is located just east of the intersection.

The university thinks some kind of intersection improvement is needed right away and is willing to put up half the cost of the project to speed it along. This funding mechanism has been used before when improvements were made to the Henderson Avenue-New Madrid Street intersection next to the new business school on the university campus. In that case, the university paid for the intersection improvements in order to leapfrog the project ahead of others on a list of projects being funded by a city transportation sales tax. The city will reimburse the university as it works down the priority list.

Taxpayers will recall that there was no quick or easy solution for the Henderson-New Madrid intersection. Early proposals were complicated and considered dangerous by many. In addition, the first cost estimates for that project were quite high. By exchanging information and looking at alternatives -- including the creative financing plan -- the city wound up with a less costly project, the university got a finished project next to a busy location, and motorists got a simple but safe intersection.

Obviously, it pays to put ideas up for scrutiny and then assess the feedback.

In the case of the Sprigg-Normal intersection, the university asked the city for traffic signals. City officials say Sprigg Street doesn't lend itself to signals at that location, because Normal crosses in a swag between too hills that cut off the view of motorists approaching from the north or south. Stopped traffic could very well cause additional accidents, they say, in an intersection that currently has only eight mishaps a year on average. So the city proposed a plan that has been used elsewhere but would be a first for Cape Girardeau: a roundabout.

In effect, a traffic circle would be built in the intersection with traffic on both Sprigg and Normal yielding to vehicles in the circle but not necessarily stopping.

Almost any prudent individual who has had to drive through traffic circles elsewhere will immediately draw some conclusions. One is that there isn't enough room at Sprigg and Henderson to build a roundabout without acquiring more land from nearby residences -- even though city officials say there is enough room there already. Another is that traffic circles are difficult to navigate for most motorists, particularly as timid drivers are bullied by lead-footed drivers who see yield signs as an invitation to speed up.

But probably the most important conclusion the average Joe or Jane would draw is that the Sprigg-Henderson intersection just isn't busy enough to warrant either signals or anything so foreign as a roundabout. Motorists who use the intersection frequently say they rarely see cars waiting on Normal. And even more rare are pedestrians trying to get across Sprigg.

And some cynical motorists have even suggested that the university would do well to encourage its students to use the shuttle buses, which roam the campus empty far too much of the time. That way they wouldn't have to worry about the Sprigg-Normal intersection either as motorists or pedestrians.