Townships hear from MoDOT official

After being entertained over a ham-and-cheesy-potatoes lunch by civil engineer and bagpipes player Bob Burnett — dressed in full Scottish Highlands regalia — about 70 Nodaway County township officials got down to business Wednesday during their annual meeting.

Several speakers were on the program for the session, which took place at the county's maintenance barn just east of South Depot Street in Maryville. But there was a single dominant theme: how to keep Nodaway's rural roads and bridges in good repair.

Northwest District Area Engineer Michael Rinehart from the Missouri Department of Transportation led off the afternoon with a summary of how MoDOT, just like the county's 15 townships, is struggling to do more with less as costs rise and revenues fall.

The heart of the problem, ironically enough, is that about two-thirds of the revenue the state uses to maintain transportation infrastructure comes from federal and state taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel.

As cars and trucks have become more fuel efficient in recent years, income from those taxes is dropping, a trend that is forcing MoDOT to trim $512 million from its staff, facilities and equipment budgets over a five-year period in order to put that same amount of money into road and bridge maintenance and construction.

The same decreasing revenue scenario is playing out in the townships, and all 15 of Nodaway County's road districts will ask voters next month either to renew property tax levies or approve three-year road bonds of between $75,000 and $180,000 for gravel and equipment.

"The tough reality is that we're facing a certain amount of dollars and a lot of needs," said Rinehart, who admitted the state is losing its battle to keep up with deteriorating letter-designated blacktops.

"The lettered routes are going to pot fast," Rinehart said, "and we don't have a good handle on what we can do about it."

One possible solution is to switch from inch-thick asphalt, a process that costs $50,000 a mile, to less-expensive chip-and-seal paving. The changeover would allow MoDOT to "capture" more miles of disintegrating roadway each year but provide motorists with a less desirable driving surface.  

No blacktop overlays are planned for Nodaway County in 2013, Rinehart said, though several projects are scheduled in Maryville during 2014 in conjunction with the resurfacing of the Highway 71/136 bypass and East First Street, which will be redesignated Highway 46.

These include Jade Avenue near its intersection with the bypass north of town; currently graveled 250th Street, which crosses the bypass and leads to the MoDOT facility and Missouri State Highway Patrol office; a brief stretch of Highway 136 on the east side of the bypass; and Route V between Munn and Highway 71.

The challenges facing Nodaway County's transportation network are representative of those faced by MoDOT statewide. Rinehart said Missouri's 33,000 miles of highways form the seventh largest road system in the nation and total more miles of pavement than are found in Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas combined. In addition, Missouri has some of the lowest motor fuels and gasoline sales tax rates in the region.

One bright spot, Rinehart said, is recent passage by the state Senate of a 1-cent transportation improvements sales tax, which would run for 10 years if ultimately passed by the House, signed by the governor and approved by voters.

Rinehart said he's optimistic the House will OK the measure, and added that polling data indicates the proposal might also pass muster with voters.

If enacted the tax would produce an estimated $7.9 billion in revenue for highway improvements over a decade, five percent of which would be kicked back to county governments.

Estimates show that Nodaway County's share of the approximated pie could be as much as $380,000 a year.