MURI SAYS MISSISSIPPI BRIDGE ON SCHEDULE

Wayne Muri favors the House-passed highway bill which is currently the subject of negotiations in a House-Senate Conference committee.

"The House bill is a good bill for Missouri," Muri, chief engineer of the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department, said Thursday night. "The House proposal will provide more federal highway money for Missouri than the Senate-passed version. I think we have a shot at a good bill which will help us in the future."

Muri was the guest speaker at the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce Surface Transportation Committee's annual highway dinner, held at Drury Lodge.

Several members of the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department, including new District 10 Engineer Freeman McCullah, were among the crowd of about 150 who attended the banquet. John Oliver of Cape Girardeau, a member of the Missouri Highway Commission, was also present at the meeting and introduced Muri.

"The federal highway program is critical to many highway projects, including the Mississippi River Bridge project at Cape Girardeau," said Muri.

He said the bridge project was currently moving along.

"We're in the process of land acquisition," he said. "We have already acquired a dozen tracts and have made offers on 20 additional tracts."

A total of 134 tracts are involved from the bridge site to the proposed Interstate 55 interchange. Total costs for purchases and expenditures to date are $414,803.

"We need the House bill," he said. "Over the next five or six years, it will mean $500 million dollars a year for Missouri highways, compared to the current $250 million."

"It won't increase immediately," Muri explained. "There are still a couple of big interstate projects to be completed in the U.S. But, once those are finished, Missouri's share of federal funds will increase, to about the $500 million figure."

Meanwhile, Missouri and other states are waiting for the new bill.

The current five-year highway law expired at the end of September and that has stopped the flow of federal road money to the states, including Missouri. The highway law controls the allocation of federal money, which comes from the federal tax on gasoline and diesel fuel.

"We couldn't let any bids in October, and we haven't let any in November," said Muri. "That cuts down on a lot of jobs in Missouri."

Muri said he had some "good news" and some "not so good" news concerning highways in Missouri.

"The good news is that we have kept our promise about road and bridge construction brought about by Proposition A," he said. "In fact, we're 40 percent ahead of our projections statewide. We've had some good contractors, and we received more federal funding that expected."

Muri added that Missouri highways were good in quantity, but not so good in quality.

"We're seeing highways with potholes and ruts," he said. "Interstate 70 is handling eight times the truck traffic it was designed for.

"I went to Europe last year to look at the European highway system," said Muri. "I learned that our highway system is safer, but European highways are better, and trucks can move around Europe more efficiently."

Muri said that European highway technology was ahead of the U.S., and European countries invested more heavily in transportation.

"You only have to buy a gallon of gasoline there to understand just how heavy the investment is," he said. "You pay from $3 to $4 a gallon yet the basic cost of fuel there is about the same as in the U.S. The difference is in taxes, which are used for highways."