By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Missouri transportation officials say long-neglected rural roads will undergo transformation in the next few years.
The General Assembly appropriated $100 million in General Revenue to improve two-lane letter blacktop roads, often called farm-to-market routes.
Former Missouri Transportation Commission chair Tom Waters of Orrick says the commission approved a lot of new projects, including rural projects.
“We’re going to be doing projects on lettered roads that have been lacking for several years,” Waters tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “Things are looking up for transportation in Missouri, for sure.”
Agreeing is Missouri Department of Transportation Director Patrick McKenna who says the money from General Revenue, the gas tax, and Congress will allow MoDOT to sink nearly $2 billion into rural roads over the next five years.
“We have over 500 bridges that are going to be either rehabbed or replaced; critical, critical need,” McKenna tells us. “Then, pavement work and much work. Again, it’s still not scaled to solve the entire problem, but it’s going to be the most significant progress we’ve made in decades.”
Missouri has more money from its gas tax after the legislature agreed to increase the state tax at the pump. The state also will benefit from the nearly $1 trillion infrastructure plan approved by Congress.
Waters, who stepped down as transportation commission chair last week after the commission meeting in St. Joseph, says the biggest boost comes from that General Revenue money specifically targeting blacktop roads.
“What we’re doing with some of this new money the governor has put in to our budget, we’re actually fixing some rural roads from front to back, the entire road,” according to Waters. “We’re doing a lot of them across the state. People are going to notice the difference, I think.”
Waters says while rural roads haven’t been neglected by the transportation commission in the past, they haven’t received enough money to keep them properly upgraded.
McKenna says Missouri has used its transportation money wisely, which is borne out by recent national studies.
“CNBC just put out a study a couple of weeks ago, ranking infrastructure in all 50 states. Missouri ranked 10th,” McKenna says. “Now, we’re ranked about 47th in total funding, but our condition of the infrastructure that we manage is 10th. So, that’s the ingenuity and hard work of the department and great work by our construction partners in the state.”
McKenna says MoDOT has not been able to devote money for upkeep of rural roads, because the lettered two-lane blacktops don’t qualify for federal assistance and nearly all of Missouri’s transportation money goes toward the state match to draw down federal funds.