Northeast Missouri has chance to shape transportation priorities

December 16, 2008

Editorial

A NEW group, the Missouri Transportation Alliance, will be using a time-tested means of identifying transportation needs -- asking local stakeholders for their input.

Alliance Chairman Bill McKenna, outlined the group's goals during a visit to Hannibal on Friday. Alliance officers pledged to return to Northeast Missouri within a few months to hear about local transportation priorities from private citizens, business owners, development officials and politicians. A statewide list of projects will then be assembled after similar information gathering sessions are held around the state.

"Missouri needs a new vision for highway priorities and projects" as well as other modes of transportation, said McKenna who formerly was president pro tem of the Missouri Senate and chairman of the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission.

That vision and that list of priorities is needed due to a steep decline in transportation funding. The approval of Amendment 3 by voters in 2004, boosted transportation spending to about $1.2 billion in the past few years. That will end by the end of next year and spending statewide will fall to less than $600 million -- which will fall short of the amount needed to maintain the state's highway system.

The Alliance has been formed to "build consensus" for a remedy to the state's funding shortfall. In order to learn what Missourians see as their most pressing transportation needs the Alliance is creating districts that correspond to the boundaries of the 10 Missouri Department of Transportation district offices.

This will not be the first time Northeast Missourians have been asked for their input. Since the mid-1990s the Tri-State Development Summit has assembled transportation priorities from Western Illinois, Northeast Missouri and Southeast Iowa. Long before the Summit took shape, there was a smaller regional approach by transportation advocates in Western Illinois and Northeast Missouri.

One of the top priorities mentioned at last Friday's meeting is the construction of a Hannibal Expressway, which is needed to complete the 526-mile Avenue of the Saints between St. Louis and St. Paul, Minn.

State Rep. Ed Schieffer of Troy also voiced his support for the construction of overpasses along the Avenue of the Saints/U.S. 61 corridor in order to bring the highway to interstate standards.

Palmyra residents are seeking safety improvements at a pair of intersections there as well.

These and other priorities will be among those discussed when Alliance members return in February or March.

Northeast Missouri residents should welcome this opportunity to share their concerns and help shape the state's transportation priorities.