County looks at road-maintenance costs

Like so many other areas in state government, the Missouri Department of Transportation is searching for ways to trim the fat. In this case, MoDOT is looking at asking Missouri's counties to maintain their own lettered state roads that range from Route A to Route Z.

Cape Girardeau County officials insist at this stage it's just talk. Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones said he doesn't think any legislation shifting the responsibility is likely to pass this year. Just the same, Jones wants to find out what it would cost if the county had to take over these roads.

Good idea. With the state in such a financial mess, anything can happen.

County highway administrator Scott Bechtold will assess the routes -- such as Route K which extends west from William Street, for example -- as well as the bridges on those roads so the county will be prepared if the department ever implements such a policy.

Platte County has already made such an analysis and has figured it will cost about $10,700 a mile each year to maintain its roads. MoDOT has told counties it would kick in to the tune of about $3,000 a mile for maintenance.

At those rates, the cost could get overly expensive very quickly. Cape Girardeau County crews maintain 425 miles of road now. Part of the study Bechtold is charged with making is finding out how many more miles of road the county would have to maintain if it took over the lettered highways.

Even though Jones is skeptical about this, it could happen.

According to MoDOT, many counties in other states already handle these sorts of roads. MoDOT started maintaining these 12,000 lettered state roads in the 1950s and 1960s as part of a 1-cent motor fuel tax increase. The state took over the roads to bring them up to state standards.

That program is a big part of the reason Missouri has the seventh largest state highway system, with 32,000 miles of state-maintained roads. Compare that with Illinois, which is ranked 13th with 16,000 miles of state roads, and Ohio, which is ninth at almost 20,000 miles of state roads.

Having counties take over these highways could be done, but Jones points out -- and rightly so, --that it would take more than money. It would require a change in the way the county plans for all of its roads. And it would require the county to figure out ways to budget for these roads, which carry a good deal more traffic than the roads the county maintains currently.

It's not clear how shifting the burden of road maintenance from one level of government to another would benefit taxpayers and road users in the long run. On the other hand, every option is going to have to be considered if the state is going to figure out a way to make ends meet. And if the case can be made that county maintenance would be more economical than having the state keep up these roads, it would certainly be worth pursuing.