Rahn says Mo. road construction headed for a cliff without new money

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri's transportation system is "improving dramatically," thanks to a funding bump but is headed toward a cliff unless the state finds a way to offset a funding drop-off in three years, the Department of Transportation said Wednesday.

"We are in the midst of a bubble for funding of highway construction," transportation chief Pete Rahn told lawmakers in his annual State of Transportation speech. But "from the top of this peak we can observe a very low valley."

Missouri's $1.3 billion road construction program "drops off a cliff in 2010 and plummets" to $569 million, slightly less than the level before voters approved a 2004 constitutional amendment authorizing new highway bonds and directing more existing tax revenues to the department.

As a result of that ballot measure, the department recently completed a project to repave and make safety improvements to the state's busiest 2,200 miles of roads. Last month, the transportation commission approved a plan to bring 85 percent of the state's 5,600 miles of major highways into good condition by 2012. Another project seeks to improve 800 bridges during that time.

But "in order to rebuild our largest, busiest interstates, to improve our lettered routes, to impact growing urban and suburban congestion, to truly move transportation forward in Missouri, we must find a way to direct more dollars to our roads and other modes of transportation," Rahn said in prepared remarks.

The State of the Transportation speech was mandated under a 2003 law as one of several steps to improve the department's accountability to legislators and the public. Since then, the department's director and six-member governing board have changed and lawmakers have generally praised the department for its improvements.

Many lawmakers now regret mandating the annual speech. Bills have been introduced to abolish it before next year, even though the law requiring it expires after the 2008 speech.

Besides stressing the need for more money in the near future -- a point that has become an annual reminder in the speech -- Rahn reiterated several department priorities, including legislation allowing police to pull over motorists for not wearing seat belts.

Police currently can issue seat belt tickets only after stopping motorists for other violations.

Primary seat belt enforcement bills have died in the Legislature in the past. But Rahn praised 39 of the 163 House members who are co-sponsoring this year's bill, numbered House Bill 90 in recognition of how many lives per year the department claims would be saved.

Rahn also supported a proposal to construct separate truck lanes on Missouri's most heavily traveled roads, Interstates 70 and 44. He said that could be accomplished as part of a $7.2 billion improvement plan, which currently has no funding.

Rahn said the department also is striving to improve other modes of transportation. For example, the state is helping build a 5,000-foot runway in Branson West, the seventh new airport built by the agency since 1990.

"Unfortunately, with current funding, we cannot say, `completed as promised' to becoming a total transportation department," Rahn said. "We are called a department of transportation, but we are funded like a highway department."