TASK FORCE IS LOOKING AT MISSOURI'S HIGHWAY NEEDS, COSTS

When voters approved a 4-cent increase in Missouri's fuel tax back in 1987, they were voicing their approval of an ambitious 15-year plan of highway construction and improvements with a $12.6 billion price tag. The bold plan included the resurfacing of nearly 43,000 miles of pavement, repair or replacement of some 1,900 bridges and improvements to major highways linking cities all over the state. In 1992, the General Assembly gave the plan another boost by imposing an additional 6-cent increase in the fuel tax to be phased in over three years.

In spite of the grand plan and the 10-cent overall increase in the fuel tax, the Department of Transportation -- at that time still known as the Highway and Transportation Department -- conceded more than a year ago that there wouldn't be enough money to complete the 15-year plan.

Why? It was a push-and-shove situation. On the one hand, the federal government's funding of highways and related projects was cut back. And on the other hand, the estimated cost of the projects was way too low. It is currently estimated that all of the projects would cost $16.7 billion, or about $4 billion more than anticipated.

The chief engineer of the Department of Transportation, Joe Mickes, was faced with the bad news about the 15-year plan when he took over the DOT reins. He was forthright about the problem, and the Highway and Transportation Commission scrapped the plan in favor of short-term goals that could be more easily matched to available revenue.

But there is still a strong feeling that the projects in the 15-year plan should be completed. Impetus comes from the newly created Total Transportation Commission, which was appointed by Gov. Mel Carnahan earlier this year. In the governor's State of the State message, he outlined his plan to pull together a panel from across the state to evaluate the state's transportation needs and recommend a financing strategy.

The Total Transportation Commission, which includes two members of the Highway and Transportation Commission, has started work, and it recently met in Kansas City with another group, called the Missouri Transportation Coalition, which represents contractors that are involved in highway construction.

The Missouri Transportation Coalition has calculated the funding shortfall as of the 1999 midpoint of the 15-year plan, and it isn't a pretty picture. What is clear to all of these groups, however, is that any serious effort to fulfill the promises made to voters in 1987 would require a sizable influx of new revenue.

Last year, the idea of a $500 million bond issue was floated around the state. Its reception was lukewarm at best, and the bond-issue idea was put on hold while other ideas were being explored, mainly by the governor's task force.

There are definite highway needs yet to be funded, but there are also limits to how much taxpayers will bear to fill those needs. A big concern is that Carnahan will treat highways the same way he did education at the start of his first term: by pushing a massive tax increase through the General Assembly to pay for Cadillac improvements in education -- without a vote of the people, as promised.