SUGGESTION FOR MODOT DIRECTOR: TRY AGAIN

When the Missouri Department of Transportation's new director was introduced last week, he immediately acknowledged a topic that has created quite a furor across the state: the 15-year highway plan.

This was the plan adopted by the General Assembly in 1992. Legislators at the time included a funding mechanism: a six-cent increase in the state's fuel tax to be phased in over a few years. The 15-year plan promised major improvements to highways all over Missouri.

Then the plan was officially scrapped last year -- by MoDOT, not the Legislature.

Citing funding shortages, MoDOT replaced the 15-year plan with a five-year plan for highway improvements. The new plan included some of the original projects and some new projects.

In the meantime, there have been any number of efforts to rethink transportation needs in Missouri -- needs that go beyond highways. In fact, there seems to be a strong possibility that MoDOT was encouraged to scrap the 15-year plan so funding could be diverted to other non-highway transportation projects. And there also seems to be a strong possibility that the 15-year plan was scrapped so more funding could be funneled to urban areas, whose voters are crucial to any statewide campaign -- like the face-off between Gov. Mel Carnahan and U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft in the 2000 Senate race.

The new MoDOT director, retired Air Force Col. Henry Hungerbeeler, is the first chief of the highway department in recent memory who hasn't come up through the department's own ranks. Hungerbeeler said last week when he was introduced: "We want the people of Missouri to feel that we are worthy of their trust and support." This was, of course, directed at the widespread skepticism that the 15-year plan really needed to be scrapped.

Consider this:

-- Missouri is enjoying a boom economy like most of the rest of the country. During good economic times, more money is spent on travel and transportation by individuals and businesses. With low gasoline prices, more gallons of fuel are being sold at pumps all over the state. This, in turn, generates more fuel-tax revenue. So even if there were problems in estimating costs and funding for projects in the 15-year highway plan, there is a reasonable expectation that the economy would make up a good-sized chunk of any deficiency.

But in all the discussions so far about the 15-year plan, there has been no talk of increased fuel sales or better-than-expected fuel-tax revenue. Why not?

-- In most business settings, good planning is the key to a prosperous bottom line. When expectations aren't met, plans are adjusted. They are rarely scrapped entirely. When it was discovered there might be a shortfall in revenue to cover the cost of all the projects in the 15-year plan, MoDOT shelved the plan.

What MoDOT didn't do was look at the plan and figure out how many of the projects that had been promised could still be funded. Nor did it figure out if there might be other funding options to raise enough money to complete the overall plan. Why not?

It was surprising to see director Hungerbeeler's comment last week that the 15-year plan was "unworkable." How did he know that? As a newcomer to Missouri, Hungerbeeler's assessment surely relied on the same questionable information the department has been using all along to let the 15-year plan crash from its own weight.

If Hungerbeeler wants to restore trust and support for MoDOT, he can organize an effort to re-evaluate the 15-year plan. And then he can go to the General Assembly -- whose plan it is -- and ask if legislators want to scrap it or find a way to make it work.