JIM TALENT PITCHES HIGHWAY PLAN TO CAPE

Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Talent says he would overhaul the Missouri Department of Transportation, if necessary, to move ahead with his highway plan.

However, Talent, a St. Louis area congressman, said Saturday he hopes that won't be necessary.

Talent made a campaign stop Saturday in Cape Girardeau, speaking to about 20 people at the Chamber of Commerce office.

Talent said a number of state community leaders have suggested the state's highway department needs a major overhaul.

"Right now, I am not making that judgment," he said.

Talent outlined his proposal to jump-start the state's stalled 15-year highway plan Thursday at the state fair in Sedalia.

Talent proposes completing the road projects on the 15-year highway plan.

The Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission voted last year to abandon the 1992 plan as the financial blueprint for road building, saying the 1992 plan wasn't financially viable on any timetable.

Talent, however, said the work can be done and he proposes selling more than $1 billion in bonds annually for 10 years to raise money to complete the work.

He said the bonds could be paid off without raising taxes, although the 6-cent gas tax hike adopted by the Legislature in 1992 would have to be extended beyond its 2007 expiration date.

Talent thinks that can be done by lawmakers without submitting it to the voters.

The gubernatorial candidate said the bonds would be retired by earmarking $430 million a year in existing state and federal road funds, squeezing an extra $100 million in "efficiencies" from MoDOT operations and diverting another $100 million from the $16 billion state budget.

Talent wants to have all the 15-year projects under contract by 2011. To date, about 20 percent of the highway projects have been completed.

Talent said his plan would assure the other 80 percent would be done.

Other states, he said, have funded road improvements by issuing bonds.

"It is not a money issue," he said. "It is a leadership issue."

The state can't afford to ignore its roads and bridges, he said, adding that completing the 15-year plan would save lives.

In 1998, 1,169 people died on Missouri's roads, and more than 7,000 traffic deaths have occurred since the 15-year plan was adopted in 1992, Talent said.

Seventy-seven percent of those deaths have occurred on two-lane roads, and 30 percent of the deaths have been caused by poor road conditions, he said.

In addition to completing highway projects, Talent has proposed designing truck lanes on interstate highways to separate car and truck traffic.

Talent said truck lanes only could be established on six-lane highways that would allow for two car lanes and a truck lane each way.