This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: June 22, 2008 - The Highway Department (I know its formal name is the Missouri Department of Transportation but its popular name in accordance with its habit and current practice is "Highway Department") recently gave its latest and most graphic display of dysfunction in Missouri transportation policy. It published a video of its proposed rebuild of I-70 across the state featuring an exclusive four-lane separate highway for trucks at a projected cost of $4 billion -- yes with a "b."
Never mind that fuel prices are through the roof, truck drivers increasingly more difficult to recruit, independent operators driven from business by fuel prices, truck license fees and taxes failing to pay for the damage to the roads we have while rail lines are clogged with truck trailers and containers being diverted to avoid cost and congestion.
Virginia has partnered with the Norfolk and Southern Railway to create an intermodal rail corridor parallel to I-81. And the plans include passenger rail service operating at enhanced speeds. In Missouri, the Highway Department and its auxiliary, the road lobby, are stuck in an earlier era, not only with respect to freight transportation but urban transit and intercity rail as well.
A recent conference of the National Corridors Initiative held in St. Louis featured a variety of speakers including the national executive director of the Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials as well as other rail, transit and airline officials. They decried current national policy, predicting that road building cannot solve problems of congestion and mobility without intermodal connections, high-speed rail and urban mass transit. Not s single dissenting voice was heard.
The director of the Missouri Highway Department was a guest speaker but apparently remained impervious to the views of his many colleagues. Particularly notable was an address by Robert Crandall, retired chief executive of American Airlines, who noted that no one should fly a distance less than 600 miles and called for a high-speed-corridor rail system.
For an instructive example of a comprehensive transportation program, one need only look at Illinois. Illinois features a public transit program providing generous support to Chicago, Metro East, Springfield, Champaign-Urbana, Bloomington, Peoria and other communities large and small. Service to urban areas is supplemented by an extensive network of transit districts providing rural and small town call-a-ride services designed to reduce isolation of the poor and elderly while providing transportation to jobs. The most recent initiative was to provide free transit services to disabled and elderly citizens on established local bus and rail routes.
Illinois and Wisconsin have set up seven round rail trips between Chicago and Milwaukee, and Illinois has increased Amtrak service to five trains each way between St. Louis and Chicago, three each way between Chicago and Carbondale and two each way between Chicago and Quincy. Studies of additional service to Iowa City, the Quad Cities and Rockford are underway. All of these efforts are accompanied by capital improvements to the affected infrastructure. The increase in train ridership has been astounding. Patronage for the Chicago-St Louis corridor climbed 93 percent from 2000 to 2007 and ridership is still going up.
Certainly public convenience and economic development fostered by improved transportation (when you want to go to an event in Chicago, purchase your rail ticket far in advance) are important. But policy makers should also consider the time and cost savings to the immediate consumer because of reduced highway congestion as well as less spending needed for capacity improvements to the roads themselves. However, perhaps most important, is the reduction in motor fuel consumption and reliance on imported oil, reduction of air pollution and reinforcement of the central business districts in communities along the line.
Next year, the new governor and legislature in Missouri and MODOT - if it is to realize on its formal name - should look to a comprehensive program mirroring what's done in its neighboring state, perhaps even with service coordinated between the two. State government should develop and take to the public a truly modern, progressive approach.
Unfortunately transportation policy is but one element of public policy in this state that lags behind best practices in other areas about the country.
John Roach, St. Louis, is a lawyer who has long been involved in transportation issues.