Senator asks feds for $200 million for state highway funding

CLAYTON, Mo. -- Sen. Kit Bond hopes to secure $200 million per year more for Missouri's roads and highways in the next federal highway bill, the Republican said Wednesday.

Bond spoke to a group of civic and political leaders at Clayton High School, where he hosted a Transportation Town Hall Forum.

"If we are able to get the highway bill completed this fall, and I am cautiously optimistic we will, it is going to provide St. Louis and Missouri with an additional hundreds of millions of dollars for key highway and bridge projects," Bond said.

Bond is chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Transportation Subcommittee, the panel that writes the federal highway bill.

Bond said he will only support a bill "that makes a large and positive difference for Missouri. After that, once the additional money is on the table, it will be up to the highway commission, MoDOT and regional planning agencies to decide how to spend that money."

Highest priority

A new Mississippi River bridge in St. Louis is this region's highest priority, Bond said. The estimated cost of the project is more than $1 billion. But Bond said it is not possible to designate the full cost of the bridge in the upcoming highway bill.

Bond warned that despite the increased funding, some projects in Missouri will simply have to wait. The state's roads, he said, rank third-worst in the nation, while bridges were ranked second-worst.

"There simply will not be enough money to fund fully every important transportation project in Missouri," Bond said.