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WHAT OTHERS SAY: Financing a plan to rebuild Interstate 70 with tolls is ...

18.05.12

Given the need to explore alternate ways to pay for new projects, MoDOT is right to trigger another debate on whether new work should be financed with tolls.

What MoDOT is planning, though, represents a different wrinkle on the subject.

It is proposing to rebuild Interstate 70 from St. Louis to Kansas City and finance the work with a toll, using a legal framework first devised in 2006 for the construction of a new bridge over the Mississippi River in St. Louis.

That project never happened. But it was different because it would have used a private company to build the bridge and collect toll revenue.

Under current legal interpretations, the state road fund can't be used for projects involving tolls, chief engineer Dave Nichols said. But the Mississippi bridge plan would have been financed solely with toll money rather than road fund money, and the General Assembly gave the project its blessing.

MoDOT proposes to use a similar development agreement to rebuild I-70. The state would lease the freeway corridor to a private-sector company, which would build, operate, finance and maintain the roadway for up to 50 years.

Source: Columbia Missourian