Official warns of road funds shortfall

If Missouri Department of Transportation funding continues at the same level, there will be no new construction after five years, a transportation commission member said.

"Bad news and no solutions," is what the commissioner, Barry Orscheln, said he brought guests at the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce's annual transportation dinner Tuesday.

Orscheln said while Missouri has the seventh-largest highway system in the country, its transportation department receives less per mile than 48 other states based on all sources of funding.

"And half of those receive twice as much per mile," he said. Illinois gets three times as much revenue per mile as Missouri, he said.

With one of the lowest gas taxes in the nation and one of the largest bridge systems, the state is in the midst of a transportation crisis, said Orscheln. Forty percent of those bridges are considered deficient, and 368 bridges are "condition 3," which Orscheln said is "one step away from being closed."

The majority of those are in rural areas, he said, which raises the issue of urban-rural split of transportation money.

"Frankly, I wish that were an issue that we didn't have to decide," said the Moberly, Mo., native. He said the decision should be left up to the Legislature.

"I would argue that more preservation money should go to the rural areas," he said.

Orscheln said the state's 15-year plan hadn't been abandoned so much as unrealistically funded.

All projects funded since 1992 and planned through 2005 are 15-year-plan projects, Orscheln said. However, more than two-thirds of the time allotted has passed with less than 75 percent of the projects complete.

And what was supposed to be a $14 billion program was planned without taking inflation into consideration, he said.

Orscheln said it will take $19 billion "in today's dollars" to complete the program. "Without additional funding it will be mathematically impossible to complete," he said. And the plan doesn't even include rebuilding the crumbling Interstate 70, which would cost about $3.5 billion alone to repair.

"I know you're sitting there thinking 'How could they have missed it this far?'" Orscheln said.

He explained no engineering studies had been completed at the time of the plan's conception; pavement thickness standards changed from 11 inches to 14 inches; environmental regulations increased and federal requirements changed for bridges, requiring them to be raised.

Bonds have helped

Selling bonds has helped somewhat in that it jump-started some projects, he said. But on the negative side, seeing all the construction under way gives a false impression to the public that MoDOT isn't broke.

The department will have a difficult time staying afloat with current funding paying back bond issues and preserving roads and bridges that already exist.

The idea of abolishing the transportation commission in favor of a different system doesn't bother him. "If it gets in the way, let's do something else," he said.

But the 15-year plan debacle had nothing to do with the commission structure, Orscheln said. "A secretary of transportation or some other form of government wouldn't have changed it."

If voters feel uncomfortable, he said, "Let's change it."

abuchanan@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160