Opponents of making Interstate 70 a toll road convinced the Missouri Legislature this year to put anti-toll wording into the state Department of Transportation’s 2017-2018 budget. But they say that won’t necessarily kill the idea forever.
So they’re going ahead with plans for an initiative petition drive aimed at getting the issue before Missouri voters next year.
That would be a proposition that, if passed, would write into the Missouri Constitution a flat-out ban on charging tolls on I-70 and any other existing state road.
MoDOT for several years has been looking at tolls on I-70 between Wentzville and Kansas City’s eastern suburbs as a possible way to renovate and widen the crumbling, congested highway amid the agency’s ongoing money crisis. The project would cost $2 billion to $4 billion.
The toll road opponents — a group called A Better Road Forward chaired by Warrenton Oil Co. executive Wayne Baker — argue that charging people and businesses to use I-70 is double taxation because they’d still have to pay the state gas tax that funds MoDOT.
“The rest of the state wouldn’t have the same burden,” said David Barklage, a Republican political consultant advising the committee. “They are moving forward and unless something dramatic happens, they plan to have this on the 2018 ballot.”
Barklage, however, said the group is willing to talk with MoDOT about coming up with a funding solution for I-70.
Opponents’ worry that tolling might be attempted without voter approval was stirred in 2012. MoDOT’s director at the time, Kevin Keith, said that such a move would be legal if private-sector companies — not the state — paid for the project and collected tolls to recoup their investment.
The idea hasn’t gone anywhere since, but tolling opponents point to MoDOT’s support for an unsuccessful bill in the 2017 legislative session outlining how such a public-private tolling partnership would work.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Kevin Corlew, R-Kansas City, made no reference to a public vote.
However, MoDOT spokesman Bob Brendel said last week that “it may be legally (allowed) but practically I don’t think we’ve taken that position.”
Regarding tolling, he said as long as no other long-term funding proposal for MoDOT has been approved, he said, “we would prefer to not have any tool taken out of the toolbox.”
The wording inserted in the MoDOT budget by the Legislature before it adjourned its regular session says no funds shall be used “for any costs associated with the tolling of interstate highways.”
Rep. Bryan Spencer, R-Wentzville, who pushed for the wording, said he believes it wouldn’t be legally binding. But he said it amounts to “a strong suggestion” representing the views of a majority of the Legislature.
Brendel said current MoDOT director Patrick McKenna doesn’t want to weigh in on the wording’s legality while the budget awaits Gov. Eric Greitens’ signature.
Spencer said he sought the wording to keep MoDOT from somehow using any of its money for a further toll study.
Spencer said he also worries that I-70 communities that aren’t along intersecting numbered highways would lose direct access to the interstate, relegating them to “ghost town” status.
Barklage, the anti-toll group’s consultant, said the group began in Warren and nearby counties and has been expanding to other communities further west along I-70.
He said the group raised about $100,000 for its lobbying efforts and is raising more to back its petition drive needing signatures of about 168,000 registered voters.
The Missouri secretary of state’s office recently approved the wording of three alternate ballot proposals submitted by the group. Barklage said the results of polling will determine which will be used.
Barklage said committee members are willing to consider other funding solutions for MoDOT and I-70 such as tax hikes. He said their long-term goal is to be “a positive influence” in coming up with a solution to road funding.
Ever since voters rejected a sales tax increase for road and bridge work in 2014, new MoDOT funding efforts have repeatedly failed in the Legislature.
But lawmakers this year did vote to create a 23-member task force to study the transportation funding problem and submit recommendations by next January. The group is to include legislators, Greitens, MoDOT and state economic development officials and various other appointees.
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