Buiding A Super Highway In Missouri Is A Bad Idea

Building a super (highway) in Missouri is a bad idea

Missouri legislators are planning to propose to spend $7 billion to rebuild Interstates highway 44 and 70 into an 8 lane superhighways across the state. Missouri legislators are concerning to as the Missouri taxpayers to fund this project with a 1 percent boost in sales taxes. This will be a terrible idea because the poor would pay the greatest percentage of the sales taxes. Big trucks and buses, which have done so much to chew up the roadbeds and bridges, would by no increased share of the tax burden to rebuild the roads. The tax rate already exceeds 8 percent in some parts of Missouri. In the St. Louis, metro area the city generates about 40 percent of the state's sales tax and 44 percent of income taxes. During a good year, the city will receive 30 percent of the state's highway spending.

The proposed highway construction would start in Eureka on I-44 and Lake Saint Louis on I-70. The two major interstates are in desperate repairs, interstate 70 built in the 1950's and 1960's, and the highway is reaching the point where roadbeds will need to replace. Missouri Department of Transportation will abandon the current I-70 roadbed and build a completely new highway adjacent to it. There would be more than 500 overpasses and bridges demolished and rebuilt.

There are very few highways in the United States with more than four lanes out in the countryside. Yet proponents tell us we need an eight-lane highway to connect us to Kansas City and Tulsa. The two men that are behind this plan is Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Stouffer, R-Napton, whose district straddles I-70 west of Boone Country. Truck traffic is increasing on both major interstates faster than cars; transportation has come up with a plan to make lanes for trucks only in both directions. Senate Bill Stouffer, R-Napton, believe the selling point would be with voters, the assurance of the Missouri Department of Transportation would rebuild the interstates with dedicated truck lanes, two lanes each way would be for trucks only. Lot of truckers would really appreciate not having to share the same lanes with cars. He feels that the concept would be attractive to Missourians who might otherwise oppose the tax increase. Other members of the Senate and House transportation Committees have begun talking to business, civic and political groups throughout the state about the one per-cent sales tax.

Missouri highways are currently financed mainly through fuel taxes. In order to finance $7 million, Missouri's current 17cents-per-gallon gasoline tax would have to go to 44 -per-gasoline cents to raise as much as a 1 percent sales tax levy. The state's highways and