NEW ROAD PLAN SHORTCHANGES RURAL NEEDS

So Missouri's 15-year road and bridge plan, adopted just six years ago, is history. So said the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission at its meeting last week. In its place will be a five-year Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan the commission adopted at the same meeting. This plan will be a "rolling plan," we are told, meaning that in a given year, some projects will be completed and move off the plan, and new projects will be added.

In trying to sort all this out, the early portents aren't good for outstate Missouri. In fact, many informed sources are telling us they're terrible. What appears beyond contest is this fact: Money is being shifted to the urban areas by the tens of millions of dollars. Outstate Missouri is being shorted. Our projects, we fear, are being cut back to glorified maintenance and repair.

MoDOT District 10 Engineer Scott Meyer has weighed in with approval of the new five-year plan. Citing an ongoing project such as the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, as well as new interchanges on I-55 at Oak Ridge and Fruitland and an expansion of Highways 34-72 west of Jackson, Meyer said, "We feel very good about the five-year plan."

Well, pardon us if we don't.

Vital projects such as construction of the new Jackson East Main interchange and much-needed improvements to the Center Junction interchange aren't even on the new plan.

There are far too many unanswered questions. Start with a simple one. When did MoDOT begin abandoning the 15-year plan? The recent audit completed by State Auditor Margaret Kelly revealed that 25 percent of the projects completed over the last six years weren't in the 15-year plan. Was there ever a time when MoDOT was committed to the 15-year plan? Or did they abandon it years ago?

In the new five-year plan, how much is being committed to urban mass transit? For how long? Are we seeing the beginning of a shift in the use of fuel tax money long committed to roads and bridges to fund light rail in our major cities? If the answer to this question is yes, how was this decision arrived at? Was the General Assembly included in the deliberations? Are outstate Missouri lawmakers -- Democrat, Republican and Independent -- going to sit still for it?

It is first to these lawmakers that Missourians must look for reassurance that we aren't going to be sold down the river altogether. While we're at it, let's fix responsibility where it belongs: with Gov. Mel Carnahan, who appears to have made a political calculation that he can sacrifice outstate Missouri for urban votes in a race for the U.S. Senate two years hence. If we're wrong on this, let's hear from the governor in some detail. We repeat for emphasis: The early portents aren't good. Not good at all.