By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Gov. Mike Parson says he vetoed the money to study whether U.S. Highway 36 should become I-72, because the proper groundwork hasn’t been laid yet.
Parson used his line-item veto pen to scratch out a $2.5 million appropriation to study the feasibility of turning Highway 36 into an interstate.
“Before you do the study, we got to make sure we’re even prepared to do that,” Parson tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post in an interview. “Do we have the land to do it? Is the environmental (study) , where’s it at? You’ve got to look at overpasses and getting on people’s property. So, there’s a lot of things going into that. What you don’t want to do is spend $2.5 million on a study and five years, seven years from now, it’s obsolete.”
Parson says lawmakers added between $600-to-700 million worth of transportation projects at the end of the legislative session. Parson says he had to consider whether projects would benefit the state as a whole.
Parson says it would do no good to study an idea without being ready to move forward.
“So, there’s a lot of moving parts to that,” Parson says. “I mean the idea, look, we’re not opposed to building more roads. I think I’ve proven that. But, you know, you’ve got to think if you’re going to put an interstate in, how is that going to take place? Do you have the land to do it number one and do you have all the things in place to do that? Frankly, we didn’t think it was ready for that at this point, not that I oppose the idea.”
Parson says lawmakers saw a large budget and began adding pet projects to it.
“In my particular case, you have to weigh that out and say, look, what are the priorities of the state and how do we afford to continue to do what we’re doing in the future,” according to Parson.
Parson says he’s not opposed to the idea of creating I-72 across northern Missouri.
“It’s not a question we didn’t like the idea, it’s probably the timing’s off and then it needs to go through a process to make sure (the money) is available to do that.”
Parson vetoed approximately $550 million in spending while signing the $50 billion state budget.