2008 Woodie Awards
MoDOT repairs yield quality roads locally
Chris Reid
Issue date: 4/17/08 Section: News
Renovation of Missouri's major roadways is paying off through improvements in road quality.
Construction on the state's major roadways, which include the interstates and heavily traveled U.S. Highways 63 and 36, has yielded a leap in the percentage of roads in good condition to 78 percent from 46 percent in 2004, according to new information released by the Missouri Department of Transportation. Roadways are classified as either "good" or "not good" condition by MoDOT engineers.
Jeff Briggs, MoDOT community relations manager, explained what caused the 2004 drop in the percentage of state roadways that were in good condition. He said it was a matter of a lack of funding and devoting time to construction rather than maintenance.
"For a number of years we focused on the construction of new roads," Briggs said. "We built a lot of new four-lane highways and added lanes to existing roadways. The problem was, we did it at the expense of all the maintenance we needed to do on our existing roads, and we deteriorated quite a bit."
The main source of funding for MoDOT's improvements was the state's fuel tax, which was inadequate in 2004 to maintain the state's roadways.
Missouri has the nation's seventh largest state highway system with more than 32,000 miles of state highway. The state's fuel tax in 2004 was 17 cents per gallon, one of the lowest in the country, Briggs said.
"When you've got that combination and that goes on for a number of years, we simply didn't have the funding to build new roads and maintain the existing system," he said.
MoDOT was able to acquire the funding necessary to get 78 percent of the state's highways into good condition from Constitutional Amendment 3, passed by voters in November 2004, which required all revenue from the fuel tax, vehicle taxes and fees paid by highway users to be used for the construction and maintenance of the state's highway system - except for collection costs and highway patrol law enforcement costs.
Construction on the state's major roadways, which include the interstates and heavily traveled U.S. Highways 63 and 36, has yielded a leap in the percentage of roads in good condition to 78 percent from 46 percent in 2004, according to new information released by the Missouri Department of Transportation. Roadways are classified as either "good" or "not good" condition by MoDOT engineers.
Jeff Briggs, MoDOT community relations manager, explained what caused the 2004 drop in the percentage of state roadways that were in good condition. He said it was a matter of a lack of funding and devoting time to construction rather than maintenance.
"For a number of years we focused on the construction of new roads," Briggs said. "We built a lot of new four-lane highways and added lanes to existing roadways. The problem was, we did it at the expense of all the maintenance we needed to do on our existing roads, and we deteriorated quite a bit."
The main source of funding for MoDOT's improvements was the state's fuel tax, which was inadequate in 2004 to maintain the state's roadways.
Missouri has the nation's seventh largest state highway system with more than 32,000 miles of state highway. The state's fuel tax in 2004 was 17 cents per gallon, one of the lowest in the country, Briggs said.
"When you've got that combination and that goes on for a number of years, we simply didn't have the funding to build new roads and maintain the existing system," he said.
MoDOT was able to acquire the funding necessary to get 78 percent of the state's highways into good condition from Constitutional Amendment 3, passed by voters in November 2004, which required all revenue from the fuel tax, vehicle taxes and fees paid by highway users to be used for the construction and maintenance of the state's highway system - except for collection costs and highway patrol law enforcement costs.
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