Funding for Mo. Roads Hits Wall

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — After months of haggling, cajoling and negotiating, a push to ask voters for higher taxes to finance transportation has four flat tires and a dead battery.

The drive lurched to a halt on Tuesday as a special joint legislative committee was told it could cost $1 billion a year in new money to finance Missouri's transportation needs.

The lawmakers listened politely as top officials reported they could meet just 77 percent of Missouri's long-term transportation needs, even with more than $600 million in new taxes and fees that have been proposed.

The Department of Transportation said it would take at least an extra $900 million annually, and perhaps $1 billion a year, through 2020 to complete most of a 15-year highway and bridge plan approved in 1992 along with other transportation projects.

"What you heard was the curtain dropping on this subject for the 1999 Legislature," said Joseph T. Fahey of Grandview, president of J.M. Fahey Construction Co. Fahey led a coalition that proposed ways to raise the $600 million.

The Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight scheduled another meeting for Wednesday to vote on whether to forge ahead and ask colleagues to send a transportation tax package to voters.

But key players predicted the vote would merely formalize what was apparent on Monday — that the effort to win more transportation funding is over, at least for this year, because of the sheer amounts of money being discussed.