BY KEN LEISER • kleiser@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8215 | Posted: Monday, April 23, 2012 12:15 am
A bid to turn Interstate 70 into a toll road appears to have stalled for the year.
State Sen. Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, said last week that he would be 'shocked" if the Missouri Legislature passes a bill authorizing tolls as part of a public-private partnership to rebuild a 200-mile stretch of I-70 across the middle of the state.
Kehoe introduced the leading toll road proposal, Senate Bill 752, earlier this year. But the measure is not expected to emerge from the Senate Transportation Committee, said Kehoe, a former Missouri highway commissioner and vice chairman of that panel.
"Part of what we accomplished was to build awareness," he said.
The Missouri Department of Transportation said converting I-70 to a toll road would involve adding lanes and replacing interchanges at a cost of $2 billion to $4 billion. The idea was to have a private consortium finance, rebuild and operate the highway.
MoDOT leaders suggested the toll road proposal would not likely require a public vote.
The proposal faced fierce opposition from the trucking industry, gas station and convenience store owners, and others.
"You never say never until the final gavel on May 18," said Ron Leone, executive director of the Missouri Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association. "Most pundits agree that the toll road issue for 2012 is dead."
Leone said there was more opposition than support for the toll idea. However, Leone said something needs to be done to shore up funding for Missouri's transportation needs and predicted that a solution will emerge in the upcoming years.
Convenience store owners along I-70 voiced concern that a significant percentage of drivers would use free highways to drive across the state and would deal a blow to their bottom lines. The powerful trucking industry decried imposing tolls without a public vote.
"Everybody understands that we've got a problem," said Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Stouffer, R-Saline County.
But Stouffer predicted there would be a harsh backlash if the toll road issue went forward in Missouri without a public vote. He did not see the toll measure passing both houses of the Legislature.
This summer and fall, Missouri lawmakers will convene interim hearings on transportation needs and funding.
One goal, he said, is to increase public awareness of the transportation funding needs and ways to pay for them.
Stouffer said he would support asking the Legislature to pass a resolution backing infrastructure and increased funding. Any funding measure would likely go to voters in the form of an initiative-petition, he said.
MoDOT Chief Engineer Dave Nichols said the proposal to rebuild I-70 through a public-private partnership and collection of tolls generated "a lot of dialogue in the House and Senate on the problem we have with transportation funding in Missouri."
Through the legislative hearings, state transportation officials learned that "tolling is not popular" among Missourians, Nichols said. Missouri has received federal permission to pursue tolls on existing interstate highways.
Without a new funding source, Nichols said, the state will not be able to reconstruct I-70 — a project that many believe is needed.
Missouri transportation officials said the rebuild would create thousands of jobs each year for the life of the project, and would loosen traffic congestion on the east-west stretch of highway between Wentzville and suburban Kansas City.