Governor Nixon wants the state’s highway commission to take a fresh look at using tolls to repair and widen I-70.
The Governor sent a letter to the state’s Highway Commission and legislative leaders asking that the commission prepare a report before the year’s end on options for using tolls to improve and expand I-70, which in Missouri runs between St. Louis and Kansas City.
Nixon calls the interstate one of Missouri most pressing infrastructure needs, with its youngest sections nearly 50 years old and designed for road standards and traffic volumes of an earlier day.
He says using tolls to pay for work on I-70 could free up resources currently used on that highway for road and bridge projects throughout the state.
The Department raised the idea of tolls three years ago but it didn’t catch on in the state legislature. Repair and widening of I-70 would have been paid for as part of a proposed sales tax increase to pay for transportation that was rejected by voters in August.
Read the governor’s letter here.