Why I support Prop D

I strongly support Proposition D for safer roads and safer streets in today�s election, and I am writing to explain my support from three different perspectives.

Perspective One: I served for 33 years with the Missouri State Highway Patrol. I retired as director of the Patrol�s Criminal Investigation Bureau, but I spent the first 20 years of my career as a trooper enforcing our road laws. Prop D secures a steady funding stream for the Patrol�s actual cost of patrolling our roads and keeping them safe. At the same time, it frees up $288 million every year that our Missouri Department of Transportation is constitutionally required to use for roads and bridges.

Perspective Two: I currently serve as vice chair of the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission, which oversees MoDOT � so I can attest to both MoDOT�s solid record of reallocating dollars to fix roads and bridges, as well as the need for new funding. Missouri last raised our state motor fuel user tax to 17 cents back in 1996. Twenty-two years of inflation have eaten away at 60 percent of MoDOT�s purchasing power, while concrete, steel and asphalt have more than doubled in cost.

Prop D will gradually phase in a 2.5-cent annual gas and diesel tax increase over four years, with each 2.5 cents costing the average motorist roughly $1.25 a month � about the price of a cup of coffee. That�s a bargain in exchange for better roads and creating thousands of new jobs.

My third and most important perspective? I�m a grandfather of six, and like any grandparent or parent, my family�s safety is priceless to me. Roads and bridges that are in poor condition affect not only the average motorists with detours, delays, and weight restrictions but also school buses, first responders, ambulances, fire trucks and freight shipping. Missouri currently has about 2,000 bridges that are rated �poor,� are under weight restrictions or both. And the number of bad bridges is rising at a rate of about 100 every year.

We cannot afford to do nothing � but we can do something important today. We can vote Yes on Proposition D.

Brig. Gen. Michael B. Pace (Retired) is a resident of West Plains, Missouri.