Poll: How should Missouri make up the shortage in funding for roads & highways? (pick 2)
The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) says it needs more money than it receives:
MoDOT has been warning for years that its annual highway construction budget would decline significantly as bond payments for those projects came due. That drop-off has now hit: The annual construction budget has fallen from $1.2 billion to less than $700 million, and it’s projected to drop to $425 million by 2019.
Missouri’s highway system has long depended on fuel taxes. But the report, required by federal law, said people drive less, and vehicles are more fuel-efficient. Meanwhile, inflation is increasing the cost of projects, the report noted. The price of asphalt, concrete and steel are double and triple what they were 20 years ago, when fuel taxes were last raised, the report said. (Columbia Daily Tribune)
One idea from earlier this year, a sales tax, is back in the news:
A proposal to raise a statewide one-cent sales tax to fund transportation projects could be headed to a Missouri ballot in 2014, if supporters of a new initiative petition are able to gather enough citizen support to put it there. (Kansas City Business Journal)
Other revenue options include tolls, increased licensing fees, raising the state fuel tax, and even closing roads/bridges rather than maintain/replace them. For the poll this week I’d like you to pick your top two options. Two because one alone might not be sufficient enough, the poll is at the top of the right sidebar.
- — Steve Patterson
License fees and fuel taxes – toll roads are a pain in the ass to use, especially on a daily basis, and discriminate against those that get stuck with them. We have many, many miles of rural, two lane roads, and many miles or urban streets and viaducts, that will never be tolled, and they cost nearly as much to maintain, on a per-lane-mile basis, as roads like I-70. And our sales taxes are already too high – I just paid 11% to dine at Alumni!
You can’t compare the 11% tax. That is because of TiFFs and STDs. Not just in the City but in many areas of the county. If they were all put on a map, we would be shocked at just how many of these districts there are. So on these, I agree….they are too high and way too many and are robbing our other services of vital $$$ needed when helping only the developer.
As for the tolls, I don’t know….I’m 50/50. I’ve been on many in the East and South, and they are better kept, easy to get on and off of, and more scenic (at least the ones connecting cities).
If I’m visiting an area, I don’t mind paying tolls, as long as they have human toll collectors (not all automated, where the rental car companies add a charge on top of the tolls). I do object to imposing tolls on some local commuters / specific corridors while not imposing them on many other local commuters / every other corridor. Why should I pay a toll to Columbia and not to Rolla or Cape Girardeau? And yes, part of this comes from my Colorado experience, where the enabling legislation for tolling specifically prohibits CDoT from improving parallel routes, essentially forcing drivers to pick between toll roads or deteriorating non-toll roads. Bottom line, we (drivers) all pay fuel taxes and vehicle registration fees. Yes, it’s a finite pot. If it’s not big enough, make it bigger by increasing existing user taxes and user fees (grow a pair) – the more you use, the more you should pay. Sales taxes, in contrast, have no direct relation to how much anyone drives AND are regressive, with poor people paying a bigger share of their incomes. And if you’re worried about the “pain” / political fallout, implement the changes gradually and automatically, for five or ten years – increasing the fuel taxes by two cents a gallon every year will not be noticed by drivers used to seeing prices vary by 10, 20 or 30 cents a gallon most every week. The same goes to registration fees – an increase of $10 per vehicle, per year, equals $100 per vehicle after 10 years, and would be nearly as imperceptible.
It is self created problem because politicians don’t have the backbone to raise gas taxes, one of the few true user taxes, but want to keep promising and building new roads. Page Ave extension is a classic St. Louis regional example. South Connector will be the next overbuilt road.
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As far as tolling, not a pain in ass to use as it becomes more and more electronic. The question, would tolling of I70 or I44 reflect the user and its respective wear and tear. Essentially, the interstate system gets a beating from trucks for all practical purposes. However, trucks get the biggest bang for their buck when it comes to gas tax.