The Star's Sunday editorial

For years, Interstate 70 across Missouri has been operating well beyond its design capacity. It’s a crowded, stressful stretch of road. The volume of truck traffic is growing twice as fast as that of cars.

The good news is the federal government has approved a new design, a configuration that would separate trucks from cars, improving safety and easing congestion. The bad news is the Missouri Department of Transportation has no idea how to pay for it.

State Sen. Bill Stouffer, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, has suggested raising the money with a statewide 1-cent sales tax, which would produce enough revenue to rebuild both I-70 and I-44 in the new configuration separating truck and car traffic.

But even Stouffer, a Republican from Napton, Mo., admits such a tax would be a tough sell in good times and probably impossible in a weak economy. That’s why this plan cries out for a different approach — namely, a toll road. It’s time for Missouri to get over its traditional aversion to tolls.

Tolls are allowed on bridges but run afoul of the state Constitution on roads. The legislature would have to approve a constitutional amendment and submit it to voters.

That’s a tall order, politically, but financing highways with user fees has been the preferred method for decades. We pay for most of our roads with a fuel tax. If you don’t drive, you don’t pay. Tolls are user fees in their purest form. If you don’t use the road, you don’t have to pay.

Stouffer has been cool to this idea, arguing that many trucks would simply avoid the toll by using other roads, such as U.S. 36, north of the Missouri River. A toll could also encourage development of freight distribution facilities in other states, potentially undermining Missouri’s geographic advantage.

Bob Brendel, Modot’s project manager for I-70 studies, says tolls always divert some traffic. But many trucks would still probably prefer a rebuilt I-70 with truck-only lanes. Such a plan would provide what freight haulers want: greater reliability for trucks carrying time-sensitive cargoes, less congestion and greater fuel economy. With less congestion and more consistent speeds, vehicles would burn less fuel.

Few would deny that I-70 needs to be rebuilt, and Brendel points out that the plan segregating trucks and cars would require the same land area as a third lane in each direction, added to the outside lane. Adding a third lane would cost $3 billion to $3.5 billion; the segregated truck-car plan would cost $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion.

Modot has applied for $200 million in stimulus money and plans to match that with $40 million in state money. The goal: construct a 30-mile stretch of the dedicated truck-lane plan in Saline and Cooper counties. If the road proves popular, perhaps that could lay the basis for approval of a funding source to pay for redoing the entire stretch of I-70.

That’s a reasonable approach. Truck-only lanes have been batted around transportation circles for years, but Missouri is further along than any other state. It’s a significant safety boost, and using a toll should be part of the financing plan to pay for it.