Demo by Wysor for Missouri lobbyists. "Sample Client (highway contractor)" is a made-up client to show how a client alert looks.
September 16, 2026 · Official meeting page
The Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight heard an update from the MoDOT director on legislatively designated projects, including the Improve I-70 program ($2.8 billion in general revenue, with all projects to be under contract by the end of next fiscal year), $577 million for I-44, the Rural Routes Program and the Focus on Bridge program. The director floated a roughly $208 million, five-year bridge bonding proposal for the next session. He also warned of an expiring federal surface transportation bill, a continuing resolution through December 11, flat to declining fuel tax revenue, and the need to consider indexing the fuel tax or shifting to registration fees. Lawmakers asked about work zone safety, a primary hands-free law, higher work zone fines, photo enforcement, a rural interstate speed limit review to be finished by year end, I-70 and I-44 construction costs and delays, and fuel tax refund fraud. No votes were taken because there was no quorum.
Sample Client (highway contractor) came up at:
Committee staff (Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight)
Gregory, Schroer, Washington, Weber.
Committee chair (Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight)
All right, we do not have a quorum, but we will not be taking any votes, so we do not need a quorum today. Today, especially with the tighter budget outlook coming for FY28, I wanted to bring the director in here and have him give an update on the legislatively designated projects that have come to MoDOT here over the past few years and just get an update on where those projects stand and which ones that we need to make sure that are protected through this budget cycle. So, Mr. Director, you may proceed when you are ready.
MoDOT director (MoDOT) Sample Client (highway contractor)
Cranked up here. So, Mr. Co-chair, members of the committee, it's a pleasure to be here to give you an update, not only on our projects, but all the other initiatives that we're doing. So I prepared some testimony, and I'll, I'll kind of use it as the highlights, not read it to you directly, but it does give you some, some of the detail. You know, at MoDOT, our mission is to provide a world-class transportation system that is safe, innovative, reliable, And dedicated to serving the customers for a prosperous Missouri. That kind of gives the great baseline of what we try to accomplish every day with our team. And when I took over as director, I said there's really 4 things if you had to kind of say what does success look like. And it's really deliver the program, restore the capability of our operations team, make sure that it's safe for our folks to do their work and safe for the people that use the roadway, and provide outstanding customer service. So fairly simple concepts that are all really difficult to do. But I wanted to just start on really to directly answer the question that's been put in front of us by the co-chair. Under deliver the program, you know, we have had unprecedented success over the last 10 years in delivering over 4,200 projects. For a total of $8.3 billion, 3.5% under budget, and 93% on time. And that's a track record that I think probably no DOT in the country could live up to. And it's really a reflection of the trust that you've put in us, what our commission can do in the commission form of governance to actually move projects through the system. And, you know, in the last several years, the General Assembly has put a huge amount of trust and responsibility in us by putting a lot of legislatively designated money and projects in front of us to deliver on top of our normal operations that we do. And so I just wanted to kind of highlight where we're at with that. In front of you, We've been keeping this document up to date since we started that process. So this is kind of the gory details of every project that has been funded with general revenue by the legislature since that first project, the Focus on Bridge program. And we keep this going because it's that important that we're able to report to you, you know, when you say, hey, here's some things that we want to accomplish. This is an ongoing document that we keep up to date, and we updated it just recently here for this hearing to make sure that it was up to date. And we'll do that again at the beginning of the session because there'll be significant progress in the next 2 months, I can tell you. So this will look different in January than it does right now. But just some basic highlights. The Rural Routes Program, the legislature has invested over $340 million of general revenue into that program to help address the condition of low-volume roads, which originally roughly half of those roads are ineligible to get federal funds. So it's always been a challenge for us to use our money that, you know, has to be matched and we use to leverage federal funds to take 100% money and put those on those low-volume roads. So that decision you made was really pretty forward-looking and has made a huge difference. To date, we have made improvements to 6,100 lane miles of low-volume roads, and then we have an additional 433 that are slated to be done this year on top of that. So those minor roads and low-volume Low-volume roads make up about 28,000 miles of our system, which is over 84%. And currently, those 2 categories of roads are in 83% good condition, which is well over the goal that we've set of 70% for low volume and 80% for our minor roads. So that investment has been invaluable for us taking care of those systems. that are less traveled, but still very important to those regions of the state. Likewise, more than 10,400 bridges across the state we are responsible for, and we've made steady progress on reducing the number of poor bridges. You know, the general revenue investment in that under the Focus on Bridge program has repaired or replaced over 250 Poor condition bridges. If you go back to 2019, we had over 900 bridges that were in poor condition. As we sit here today, that number is 726. And a lot of that is a direct result of the investment that the legislature made in the Focus on Bridge program. So if you remember, that was a $50 million single appropriation. And then a $301 million bonding proposal that had some triggers in it that were pretty important, right, that we had to get a federal grant to do some work on I-70 at the Rocheport Bridge. All of that happened. We did the bonding. We've got all the bridges done. And the bonds are paid off, will be paid off at the end of this year. So we can, we'll be able to put a bow on that one. And call that one a success. Right now, one of the things I wanted to point out is that debt service on low-volume— or on the Focus on Bridge program is about $45.6 million a year. So that'll be paid off, and certainly we are going to make a proposal during this next legislature to continue that process in some way, shape, or form. I think the idea of using that— mechanism to do priorities that the legislature has is a really good one, and you can see the success that it's created. So I think that's a huge opportunity. The thing that we have proposed is maybe to continue that for another 5 years and continue to work on bridges across the state, mostly in rural parts of this state where there's not as many prior— you know, they don't rise to the top in the priority listing as often. So that would be about $208 million worth of bridges and replace about 100. That's just a proposal, but I wanted to kind of put it in front of you all as the transportation group here as an idea. Of course, the ones that you hear about and the ones that are probably top of mind with the legislatively designated funds is the $2.8 billion that have gone to the Improve I-70 program. We officially— and I put in front of you, this is kind of, we call it our placemat, but it gives you kind of where we're at. And we also keep this one updated on a regular basis because it changes pretty often. But we have 5 projects under construction in addition to 1 federally funded grant program to address truck parking. I can tell you I was driving back from the airport last night in St. Louis at midnight. And we're going to add another 250 truck parking spots. We need every one of those because as I was driving across I-70, there were trucks parked everywhere. Every one of our rest areas was full, every ramp, every shoulder. So that'll be a great addition to our system when that gets done. But I-70 is going really well. We've got 3 projects left to award. We're going to do one in November and then 2 next year before summer. So by the end of really the fiscal year next year, we will have every project on I-70 under contract. And most of those go really quickly to construction. So I'm sure if you've driven across I-70, you can see the progress that we're making. So right now, we've opened bridges at Green Valley, at Columbia, at Warrington. We have a new interchange at 54, done, up and running. The expansion, which was funded by traditional funding at I-64 that ties into the Wentzville, now is complete, 3 lanes each direction up to the interchange. And we have the first of 5 direct connections in Columbia open. So if you're coming west or east 70 to South 63, now you have a direct connect ramp. And you can see kind of what else is going on there at Columbia. We're putting the big flyover ramp in place. So in the not too distant future, we're going to have that interchange done. And then in addition to the I-70 improvements, the legislature put forward $577 million of general revenue for I-44. And certainly the 44 effort is underway. Right after that was passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, we put $100 million of general revenue into the improvements in Springfield on that project. And then here, just a few months ago, we broke ground on the $470 million design-build project that addresses the stretch basically from Just north of Springfield all the way down through and including some of the interchange work at Fidelity at I-49. A lot of that will be upgraded to 3 lanes each direction through Springfield, and a huge, really a huge improvement in that part of the state. There's still a lot of other work that we're doing that basically is taking care of existing infrastructure on I-44. We'll have a lot of work in various places across the state, about $126 million of interchange and intersection improvements in Franklin County, $80 million to rebuild pavement in Laclede County. So if you look across the entire state, also we have another one of these placemats that we keep up to date. 44 is not continuous, so there's bits, there's pieces of it where We're working, but you can see here both not only the general revenue funding, but we've supplemented that with our traditional road fund funding to make really good improvements across the entire corridor of I-44. So really between Focus on Bridge, Rural Road Program, I-70, and I-44, all of those are either completed underway in some shape or form and making great progress and will be improvements that will endure for many years. So we're really happy about that. If you look at the rest of our program, our '27 through '31 STIP, we have about $13 billion of federal and state revenue for all modes of transportation over the next 5 years. And really, these have been the historic highs of funding for transportation in the state. Really, the peak was a couple years ago at about $14.6 billion. We're starting to see kind of the peak of that as some of this general revenue one-time money is starting to get spent. And certainly the other challenge is our federal bill will expire at the end of this month, and there really is no direction in sight on the federal bill. So we're all kind of awaiting kind of what happens there. But that's a huge concern that we have. We're working on a continuing resolution that's good till December 11th. But what I can tell you is when you go through that kind of a process, when it's 2 months at a time, it really makes it hard to make commitments on projects because the federal money becomes a little more uncertain. And so, so that's something we're all looking at and something we're concerned about. But we're going to continue to do what we can do with the federal money. And I think, you know, in general, in previous times like this, it usually gets worked out. But you just got to be a little more cautious. You just do, because you can't really count on it. So really, with all that being said, you know, This is probably the busiest construction season actually on the ground that we've had. Literally between our maintenance work and the work of our contractors, literally we're going to have 1,000 work zones a day if you go out on our system. So any corner of the state, any place you go, you're going to see progress on various things around the state. I wanted to just spend a little bit of time on number 2, which is restoring the capability of our operations team. You know, we lost a lot of folks. We lost a lot of momentum on being able to do things that our team does across the state. And certainly, we have asked in the budget process for the legislature to add some positions for our Frontline, on-the-ground maintenance workers, and thank you for doing that. And it's showing dividends. We are able to take care of a lot of those things that I kind of dubbed as windshield issues. You know, we get to the stuff you have to get to. You got to put up the stop sign, you got to patch the potholes, you got to do the stuff that is safety-related. But a lot of times without the necessary resources, you don't get to the things that people notice, right? It's the trash, it's the mowing, it's the things that you notice when you drive down the road. And we've made tremendous progress on that front. If you look at our labor hours spent on sign maintenance, we've got about 160,000 labor hours this year. Litter pickup, about 139,000. Striping, 45,000. Sweeping, 29,000. And I know those numbers probably don't mean a lot to you, but if you look at those compared to our 5-year average on doing that kind of work, they're up on every one, anywhere from 10% more this year to as much as 25% more than that. And that's just work hours performing those kind of activities. So our crews across the state are working hard to make sure that we're taking care of those issues. And I think I've gotten some feedback Um, from a lot of you and some others that said we noticed a difference. So we're, we're going to continue on that front. Um, the, the other thing that we are really focused on is, is really the safety of our folks. Um, the behavior of the public is pretty atrocious. Um, our folks that are on the ground every day see things that would just curl your toenails, right? The The behavior of folks, the distracted driving, a lot of the things that we're dealing with. So we're having to spend a little more effort on protecting our team. We're putting more TMAs out there when we're doing work to protect them. We're making sure that we're trying to do work at the right times. But in work zones this year, there have been 24 people killed. None of those have been MoDOT employees. They've been the public. So these are dangerous places for our folks, but they're also dangerous places for the public if they don't do the things they need to do, which is drive the work zone speed limit, make sure you put your phone down, and then everybody gets to go home. On the bigger safety front, I think from the public perspective, we have seen a year-over-year decline in fatalities for 3 years in a row. This year, year to date, we're still 5% under last year, which is good news. We're seeing some real progress in distracted driving. One of the things that the legislature did was pass the sitting, bending, distracted driving law, and that has made a difference. We've asked Cambridge Telematics, is one of the companies that insurance companies use to figure out what people are doing. And from the data that they collect, they've determined there's about a 5% decrease in distracted driving from the first year that law was passed till now. And so, you know, there were 97 distracted fatalities— distracted driving fatalities in Missouri in 2025. And if we can get a 5% reduction, that'll make a difference. But there's still probably a lot of underreporting of distracted driving. I think that's one of the challenges that we face. But it's progress nonetheless. So, you know, we're asking people in the last 3 months of the year, which are sometimes some of the most highly, you know, fatality-laden months, to take extra time to make sure they buckle up, put their phone down, slow down, and don't drive impaired. If we can do that, we can talk about a 4th year in a row when we get to December. So we're hoping that that will happen. And then the last one was making sure that we focus on customers. You know, I made the commitment, I think, when I first took this job to say we need to be more available to the public. We're doing a lot more public meetings. That also included the relationship with the legislature. I've made it a point, and I think the commission has made it a point, to make sure that we have that relationship and that I hope you see that. The commission has made a point that when they're traveling, they do coffee with the commission for legislators in their area. Some take advantage and some don't, but we've had some really good conversations about kind of the local issues. It's an opportunity for the commission and for myself and our team. And then I hope you've had the chance to interact with your local teams. Our area engineers are on the ground all over the state and certainly are the experts on you know, the details of what's going on in every region of the state. So we've made a concerted effort to try to make sure we're doing that. I think last year we determined that we had a public meeting somewhere in the state on a project every week, and many weeks we'd have 2 or 3. So we've had a lot of public outreach as we try to put our program in place. And certainly working with our planning partners throughout the state, we're getting to that place of delivering the program. We just are finishing up our meetings across the state for unfunded needs, our unfunded needs process that kind of becomes the on-deck list. And we've had a lot of great conversations around the state on what that should look like going forward. I kind of wanted to just end though with the kind of the discussion of Certainly, the cost of doing business is going up, right? We've seen high inflation during the COVID years. It kind of ramped back down to what I would call a more normal level in the last few years, but we're seeing it ramp up again. Everything we do is energy-related, and we all know what energy prices are doing, and it's having an adverse impact on what we do. So, whether it's the trucks that we buy, which come from Canada, which creates another set of problems, but basically everything we do has some component of energy in it. So, $5 a gallon diesel, $5.50, whatever it is today. I was at a conference in California last week. Diesel there is $8 a gallon. I mean, I filled up my gas rental car and it was $6.60, I about fell over. But, you know, that's something we're facing. And I think it is— we talk about the peak of the curve and funding. It's not a crisis. It's not something we have to address today. But we got to start talking about what does that look like going forward. You know, do we need to think about indexing the fuel tax? Do we need to think about shifting to some kind of registration fee that makes up for efficiency of cars, maybe not generating any more gross receipts. But if we don't, you know, we're going to be in a declining situation with revenue with inflation chewing at the bottom of the curve. So just something that we have on our radar. It's hard to talk about that when you have a record-sized program and you're doing construction everywhere. But if you wait till you get to the backside of the curve, it's too late, and then it's hard to recover. So that's just kind of a future forward-looking view. I think with that, I will quit and be willing to answer any questions you have.
The director described a nearly complete I-70 award schedule, a proposed five-year bridge bonding program of about $208 million, I-44 work, and federal funding uncertainty, all of which shape the contractor's future bidding pipeline.
Committee chair (Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight)
All right. Any questions for the Director? Representative Butz.
Steve Butz
Mr. Chair, I do inquire.
Committee chair (Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight)
Proceed.
Steve Butz
Thank you very much. I appreciate your presentation. I had 2 quick questions. So the one is, every time— and I Obviously, I'm driving from St. Louis to Jeff City on 70 all the time, and I'm just not really that— I see MoDOT, the signs are there, the workers are there, the driving is still crazy. When you have construction zones, is there more— does there need to be more communication with like the Highway Patrol and, you know, the local sheriffs and even police departments? I marvel at the lack— and this is not a MoDOT thing, but maybe just if you're saying, hey, You know, that stretch through like Warrington, Wright City, and all that, it's a dangerous stretch. And you would think with the fatalities we've had and the accidents, there would just be more of a police presence. And I just think all of us as legislators, yourself as a director of MoDOT, that story needs to be told. I hate to pick on outstate municipalities like that, but I'm like, I really don't believe— Yeah. at 10:00 AM, you're responding to emergency 911 calls the way they are in the city of St. Louis. Just the presence of the vehicle with their cherries on top, I think, slows things down. And a trooper just driving along at 55 miles an hour, you know, would do a lot. That's one. The second part is, I loved your last comment because 8 years ago, and I've loved working on transportation issues all 8 years, we were behind on the curve 8 years ago, and it was critical. Right. And just a parting thought that I've left 20 times on the House floor, and that is, yes, we need to index fixed charge things like the gas tax. Even though we increase it, if we would just index it gradually every year to at least meet inflation, we won't be losing dollars. So that's more of a comment. But the first one, I'd like to know if— is there more communication that we could be having at all levels? 'Cause doggone it, just during the middle of the day, I just don't see much law enforcement.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
Yeah, we actually have on I-70 an ongoing task force project by project with local law enforcement and then a global one with the Highway Patrol. They have made a huge effort on enforcement. Certainly, they're challenged with staffing just like a lot of places are. I can tell you last night I drove home from the airport at 10 o'clock last night And there were, of course, we were doing a lot of night work, but we had— I saw between Warrenton and Wentzville, 2 troopers and 2 local. So I was really happy last night. Oh, that's great. Because people were behaving. But you're right. I mean, certainly more enforcement would make things better, but we're constantly talking about that with not only law enforcement, but other first responders. Because if something balls up, you know, it causes a lot of problems. And so far, I can— I think I can say this. We haven't seen the latest quarter numbers, but actually there are the same number of crashes on I-70 post or pre-construction as there are during. And one of the problems with I-70, the reason we needed to make some improvements is because that corridor became so unreliable. Because of crashes. You know, I mean, you just couldn't count on being able to drive across the state without running into some kind of a big crash. And so right now, at least a quarter ago, it was kind of mind-blowing to me is that the number of crashes has not gone up during construction, which is pretty amazing to me.
Committee chair (Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight)
Just to build off your comment there before I go to Representative Burton. So the number of crashes on I-70 hasn't increased, but just— it's causing more blockages because of the more confined— because you've lost all that shoulder space because you're working.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
That's right. Sometimes it takes longer to clear them. So the delay is more. And certainly that's one of the reasons when I said we're having these kind of task forces with all first responders is to make sure we can clear them quicker because it does have other impacts, right? People start using local roads and, you know, we get a lot of feedback from some of the communities that say, hey, you're pushing your traffic off on our roads. And so that's why we're trying to have those ongoing dialogues with all these local communities to make sure we kind of all know what we're doing. Um, but yes, you're right, exactly right.
Committee chair (Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight)
Representative Burton.
Michael Burton
Thank you, Mr. Chair, to inquire.
Committee chair (Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight)
Proceed.
Michael Burton
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Hi, gentlemen, how are you?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
Good.
Michael Burton
Excellent. Um, I know you touched on this a little bit, but how is MoDOT ensuring, uh, federal matching funds, um, are not left on the table?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
We never, we never have and never will leave any federal funds on the table.
Michael Burton
Okay.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
We make sure, because there's a limit. Everybody thinks there's like an infinite amount and you just keep matching. There's an allocated amount every year, and we make sure that we get that. And it's among— it's through many programs. So you can't just say, you know, there's a big bucket of money. There are literally tens of, twenties of, I don't know how many programs, but there's a lot.
Michael Burton
And you all are always being proactive and looking and seeing what's offered?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
That would be like malpractice for us not to do that when it's an 80/20 match. Right. In fact, there's a thing that happens every August that's called August Redistribution. And it's really not more money. It's really to get the authority to use some of the existing money that doesn't get spent other places in the country. And we're not taking it from states. These are— this comes out of programs like, you know, the TIFIA loan program and things like that. But once you get to the end of the year, if you've got your ducks in a row, you can ask for more of that spending authority. And so, like this year, we asked for another $200 and I think $17 million. But it really requires that we take care of our business and that our locals take care of their business. That's the biggest challenge.
Michael Burton
Okay. Thank you.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
We're certainly matching every dollar that we can get
Michael Burton
Excellent. It sounds like you went to a conference regarding transportation. Was there anything that you learned from that conference that other states are doing that you would like to bring here?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
You know, when I go to these conferences, it reaffirms that we're doing a lot of good things in Missouri because a lot of things that they're kind of concerned about, we have already kind of tackled. But the biggest, the biggest concern right now is reauthorize the, the transport, the federal transportation bill and not having a replacement for that. That's what's got, I think, every state in the country concerned.
Michael Burton
Okay. I just wanted to, I just wanted to ask that. And I'm going to just go through pretty quick here. How is MoDOT looking this winter? How many employees short are we? Where do we stand when it comes to that?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
You know, I'll just be pretty frank here. We were doing really well through about April of this year where we were net positive hiring for maintenance month after month after month, and we hit a wall.
Michael Burton
Okay, yeah, that was going to be my next question was what is the current turnover rate? Is it getting better or worse?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
I would say for all the hiring that we have done this year, After the last 4 months, we're net negative for the year.
Michael Burton
Yeah.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
So, you know, that's, that's a challenge and continues to be.
Michael Burton
Can you compare that to last year? Is that where we were last year?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
We're net better this year than last year.
Michael Burton
Okay.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
But not by, not by as much as I wanted.
Michael Burton
Not what we need. Okay. How are you feeling about the speed limit increase? How is that process going? I saw that there is some pushback in the Ozarks. Does it seem like the commission is excited about increasing the speed limit? Are they hesitant? Where does that stand?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
I think we're being very methodical about it. You know, raising the speed limit comes with a challenge that— I mean, speed increases severity of crashes. It does a lot of things that could potentially have negative impacts. So the approach that we've taken is that we've put in place objective criteria to look at every rural interstate that's eligible, and we're going to make the decision to try to not make anything worse.
Michael Burton
Okay.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
That process is underway, and I made the commitment that we would have all the decisions and the changes made on the ground by the end of the year.
Michael Burton
Okay. And you were talking about something earlier that the legislators passed that has reduced distracted drivers. Was that hands-free?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
Yeah, the Siddons-Benning law, which is the hands-free.
Michael Burton
Right. That's what I thought. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that real quick. I still see tons of people holding their phones while they're driving. I lived in California for 9 years, and I think it was like a $600 or $700 ticket if you were caught with anything in your hands that remotely looked like a phone. And so in California, you did not pick up your phone. Nobody picked up their phone. It was just— you knew it, you got used to it. And when I moved back here, it's just kind of astounding how many people still have their phones in their hands. And I was curious if you think that the legislature should go further And allowing that to be a primary offense so they don't need to be committing a second infraction to be pulled over. Should we be more proactive and just saying, a police officer saw you holding your phone, you need to be pulled over and get a ticket?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
Certainly that would have a bigger impact. You know, the impact that it currently has as a secondary has been positive, but certainly I think we all see it, right? People still are doing it. So a primary law would certainly have a bigger impact on distracted driving than a secondary.
Michael Burton
Okay, and I'm almost done here. Going back to Tonya Muscoff and Caitlyn and Jax and James Brooks and things like that, we're coming up on 5 years now. The state of Missouri still owes Tonya Muscoff, $300,000. And I know this isn't all on you. This has to do with the lawsuit and tort reform that's separate from MoDOT. But I just want everybody on the committee to understand that, that a MoDOT worker was killed. There were some problems, many problems there, and we're coming up on 5 years and This family has still not been taken care of. Um, one last question, and I appreciate you answering my questions, is would you be open to increasing the penalty for speeding through work zones? I've done some research on that. Currently, right now, it's a $250 ticket for speeding through a work zone, which to me seems absurdly low. And when you look at surrounding states and what the penalty is there, It is 2, 3, 4, 5 times higher in some other states. Do you think that MoDOT, to protect their workers, would like to see that penalty go up from $250?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
You know, I'm not sure it's the penalty that, that really matters. Certainly that might help. You know, we've also had conversations about photo enforcement of work zones. That would be the most effective way to get people's attention.
Michael Burton
I had that here, but I wasn't going to ask it. Yeah.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
Yeah, I know that's a controversial subject, but a lot of states have done that with really great outcomes for school zones and work zones in a lot of cases.
Michael Burton
Yeah, but I think talking about cameras and stuff right now in the state of Missouri, I don't know how far that's going to go, which I think the second best thing would be to increase the penalty So people aren't— it's not a little slap on the wrist, and that we should be doing more to protect MoDOT workers. And I think if people knew that the fine was higher, they would be less apt to speed. I don't want to take everybody's time. I appreciate you answering my questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Don Mayhew Sample Client (highway contractor)
Representative Mayhew. Yes, Mr. Chair. Inquiry or— Proceed. So thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Director, for being here today, and thank you for all of this information. And it's much appreciated and very informative. To, to my friend from the Burton District, it looks like we have a lot of opportunities to comment since it looks like our friends over on this side of the building decided that $2.8 billion in general revenue wasn't worth showing up for. But let's talk about some of that, if you don't mind. We, besides the focus on bridges, which I enthusiastically supported, as you'll recall, we additionally had $2.8 billion in general revenue. That's right. That went toward one single project of dubious distinction. But we've had other contributions from general revenue. And I liked your earlier comment and statement about how we were supposed to be supporting transportation projects. In fact, if it's not exactly specific, at least it's my understanding that— It is. The way the Constitution's written, there was never any intent that the legislature would support transportation projects with general revenue. Now, we have over the years, and certainly significantly in most recent years, but the gas tax was supposed to provide all that funding. I think it's fairly clear in the Constitution. The— The problem that we've gotten into is, is that, as you and I have discussed many times, that we need a different way to fund transportation projects, one that is as the constitutional amendment which allowed for a commission intended, so that it would be self-supporting. However, We are here today, and you had mentioned earlier that there are some challenges from a cost standpoint. We've seen some significant increases in construction costs. But Missouri is unique in that increase in construction costs. As you and I had discussed many times in the past, we had a 2-year period there where We had a 48% increase in construction costs in Missouri, and compared to even Illinois at the time, who was sitting at about 16%, if I remember correctly. And we— you attributed that to simply logistics, supply chain, et cetera. And which I'm still a bit confused of why Oklahoma or Illinois somehow was able to manage that And we did not. But knowing that you were completely honest with me on what you felt like was the cause there, but don't you think that dumping as much money into the— into heavy construction generally through the ARPA funds and through this considerable amount of money that was spent on I-70, contributed to that increase in construction costs in Missouri?
A committee member argued that heavy one-time general revenue spending drove up construction costs and strained contractor capacity, which could shape how lawmakers fund and pace future projects the contractor bids on.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
I don't think there's any doubt about it, right? You put, you put more supply and the demand goes up. And certainly there is, there is some, some of that. Now, if you look at the inflation over the last 5 years, we're right on par with our neighbors.
Don Mayhew
Well, we have come a little bit closer to our neighbors somewhat. But we can see this reaching down at the county level. We're seeing off-system bridges double in bid price, which admittedly diesel fuel has gone up. That's a significant component. Labor costs have gone up, but they haven't gone up 100%. And so, you know, we— there's really only one difference in what happens now and what happened then is that we have spent a lot of money at one time on transportation-related issues, not just transportation, heavy construction in general. And there's a limited ability of the contractors that we have now in order to do that work. Wouldn't you agree?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
You know, our industry has done a really good job of, of taking on that Spike. I mean, if you look at I-70, we're getting prices that are amazing. Now, you may, and I think we've talked about it, is does that put pressure on other projects? Really, when we look at it, it hasn't. Certainly, bridges have gone up for us and for counties. When I look at that, bridge prices have doubled in 12 years. Wow. So, if you do the average of inflation on that, you know, it's— that's about the inflation rate of what the rest of the world is going through right now. So, certainly, that's an issue, but it's not going to go away. It's not going to get better.
Don Mayhew
Well, it will when we run out of money. I mean, we'll see prices moderate. My point in all of that is that I mean, from an engineering perspective, you and I are both engineers, wouldn't it have been more prudent to stretch these dollars out over a longer period of time and then result in lower inflationary pressure?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
That's not what happened.
Don Mayhew
Well, we know that's not what happened.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
A lot of the one-time money was directed, so we took the direction. Our normal program money is kind of consistent and we try to keep it that way. But, you know, other states are seeing the exact same thing. There's no anomaly here in Missouri.
Don Mayhew
Well, I mean, at least in our neighborhood, I don't see any adjacent state 3-lane an I-70, for instance. In each direction. I don't see other states contributing $2.8 billion of general revenue toward a single project which has limited effects statewide. So I think there's some significant differences between, let's say, a Kansas and a Missouri with regard to that. And admittedly, a lot of the contractors who would be interested in the size of these projects are working in other areas and limits our pool of people who would be available to bid on these projects in the first place. But, you know, for instance, you and I discussed this, that, you know, $2.8 billion would have completely eliminated Tier 1, completely eliminated Tier 2, and most of Tier 3 of the high priority unfunded need, which were— a lot of those were projects that have been sitting around for a long time, safety— most of them safety related. Right. Certainly throughout the entire state. But as you astutely pointed out, is, well, too late now. Closing the gate after the cow's out of the barn doesn't do us much good. But where I would be at on this is that we were assured from many conversations that $2.8 billion would be more than enough. Okay. to accomplish this project of 3-laning entirely across the state from border to border. And yet, if I do the math on, on what we've got sitting here in front of us, we're way over $3.1 billion. And so the question mark— and I already know the answer to this question because you clearly laid it out here— is, is that What were you talking about at that time when you said it was $2.8 and no more?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
Well, the $2.8 billion was to add a 3rd lane to I-70 across the state. We're going to do way more than that for $2.8. Every project so far has not only added a 3rd lane, but it's entirely rebuilt the aging infrastructure that was on its last legs. So not only are we going to get a 3rd lane, we're going to get a completely rebuilt interstate system that's going to last for another 70 years. And there were a lot of projects that were regionally prioritized that did far more than just rebuilding the 3rd lane. So the conversation was $2.8 billion will add the 3rd lane across the state. And we have gotten like extremely huge value by the process we've used, by our industry stepping up. I can tell you that that project, the value on that, bar none, is exceptional. And that additional money to get to 3— it's $3.3 billion total so far. Mm-hmm. Has gotten improvements to interchanges. Some of those have been driven by economic development, like the work at Wright City to service American Food Group and what they're doing there. You're going to see probably some improvements that are related to what's going on in Montgomery County related to some of the data centers that are being built. And quite frankly, some of the reason that You know, they're interested in being there is because the infrastructure is going to be that good.
Don Mayhew
Well, yeah, I mean, for what we're paying, we better have a high-quality project. You know, over $20 million a mile is pretty expensive when you already own the real estate and all the grading is done. So that's a significant increase in construction cost. And yeah, I would say that we're getting pretty good value for our Our buck whenever we compare that to a 50% increase in construction costs a few years back. So, but that still means that we had a 50% increase in construction costs during that period that others did not experience. So a lot of it, if I read everything correctly, is federal dollars that were used to do improvements. Yes. But whenever you say that was for the 3-laning, the $2.8 billion, your statement— and maybe you weren't clear enough— was that— and your predecessor— was that $2.8 billion would be sufficient to do that work. You didn't say that, oh yeah, and by the way, we're going to do these other projects. However, except for one that you did mention, and I appreciated it— The bridge. And that was the $185 million. A lot of it, it was an 80/20 match for the flyover in Columbia, and you had included that as part of this new 3-laning project on the first section. And so, and in which case, that one also, you had made a commitment at the time that that would be done in 3 years. And I think August was the 3-year line, so I'd say you're pretty Probably pretty close to that estimate. And it looks like you're on track for your 7-year estimate. It still remains to be seen, and that's very good, but at significant cost in order to do that because those compressed timelines also tend to add cost to the project, correct?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
Certainly they can. I don't think it's happening here. Actually, we're getting
Don Mayhew
Well, I would respectfully disagree with that because that's just the way the world works. You tell a contractor he's got a week to get something that would normally take a month to get done, and you're going to get an increase in construction costs because it's possible, and especially when you do a design-build situation. But the— on the other thing that we talked about on I-70, and you assured us that we wouldn't have a problem with it, Was that they had developed a traffic control plan that would result in very few delays. And as the representative from the Butz District pointed out, it seems like every time I try to get to that exit at Kingdom City, still to this day, we're seeing stoppages. There's— I mean, the traffic comes to a complete stop. Now, it's better now because That westbound lane is, I'd say, nearly done, I think, apparently. But folks are telling me about I-70 turning into a parking lot in a lot of locations along through there beyond accidents that occur. And so, which was a concern of mine, but it was a concern of others who live and travel along that corridor about how that was going to work. Right. There's significant sections left to rebuild. Are we addressing the shortcomings of some of these other traffic control plans that try to address that situation? I
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
mean, our commitment is to keep 2 lanes of traffic open, except for off-peak times, and we're doing that. Certainly the delays are caused by crashes. There's no doubt about that.
Don Mayhew
Well, but you pointed out that crashes are not a significant factor here in a difference in delays from I-70 before and I-70 now. Was that my understanding?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
I mean, if you look at the data, that's what it would tell you is that it's not that much different than it was before.
Don Mayhew
But— and that kind of actually makes sense because if there's a delay in construction, there's less opportunity for a crash. at speed or distraction or whatever other than those rear-enders. Which brings me to the other one related to that of a— oh, one last thing on that was you're talking about truck parking, which I think is completely necessary. But I don't think we ever talked about that in Budget Committee or even in Transportation Committee about the truck parking. And And, you know, the utilization of the rest areas, which, by the way, we don't have rest areas anymore except for Webster County, I think, is a full rest area. I can't think of any other one. All the rest of them have been turned into porta-potties with truck parking.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
We still have rest areas. We have one at St. Clair. We have one at—
Don Mayhew
Oh yeah, that's right.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
I'm sorry. St. Clair, Conway. We have 3 on I-70.
Don Mayhew
St. Clair, the one that has the inside pull-off that causes all the accidents.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
Which is totally getting rebuilt.
Don Mayhew
Oh, good. Is it going to go to outside? No, it's going to stay where it's at. Okay, so we're not going to see a reduction in accidents there.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
But truck parking was a federal grant that we went and competed for. Oh, okay. Has nothing to do with the 2%.
Don Mayhew Sample Client (highway contractor)
All right, so you're just taking the opportunity to include that. Okay, well, good, and thank you for pointing that out. So some of the other concerns that my constituents have revolve around the way that some of these improvements have been contracted. And so, for instance, the bridges across I-44 in the, in the Raleigh area. So we are seeing extended periods where the contractor is not working on a bridge. They mobilize on the project, they close down the lanes, and then nobody shows up for a month. And And it's— so while that might be okay at Sugartree Road, which is low impact, the, the bridge that goes over to the, the commercial center in Rolla has been one lane for— since it— since the contractor started work. And I've been by there on Wednesdays with the sun shining bright and not a soul in sight. Right. And understanding that there's a certain amount of programming that goes in on how you develop the construction timeline for something, since it was the same contractor working on 3, maybe 4 bridges at the same time, it looked to me like they were spread pretty thin. And so they were doing a little bit on this one this week and then a little bit on that one next week. And so do we have somebody— Yes. managing that construction schedule so that those higher priority projects will be accomplished in a reasonable amount of time?
A lawmaker criticized a contractor for idle periods and spreading crews across several I-44 bridges, signaling closer scrutiny of schedules, lane closures, and performance that could affect contractor reputation and future awards.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
I mean, we've given them a contract with a completion date, I'm sure, but I'll look at it. I'm not sure the details of that one, but we'll look at it.
Don Mayhew
Oh, I guarantee you they had a completion date, but they had 4 bridges due at the same time. And so, but they, I'm guessing, this is a guess, they had a limited number of people available. And so where maybe you or I would have said something like, well, hey, do this bridge first because of the commercial impact to the city of Rolla.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
Well, let's look at that one. I'm not sure. I don't know enough about it to give you a good answer.
Don Mayhew
So on the— on I-44, I love what you're doing here. There's a lot of good projects in here. However, And maybe you can highlight some of the other detail on it. Right now, the Arlington Hill climbing lane is— the acceleration part of that lane is way too short. The trucks aren't even using the climbing lane. We have a climbing lane there, but they don't use it because they get trapped. Now, a few years back, MoDOT had done an extension of that, but it still didn't go far enough. Right. Is part of this project for these improvements on I-44, is part of that to make those improvements in those climbing areas so that we get to put the trucks over there where they belong?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
Yes, part of it is. Okay. I'm not sure I know Arlington. I don't know that terminology of which one—
Don Mayhew
It's Little Piney. That's where the bridge crosses Little Piney. That's Arlington.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
But yes, we are making improvements to climbing lanes as part
Committee chair (Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight)
So if I could interject real quick here, Representative, I know there's other meetings happening here at 11:00 a.m., so if we
Don Mayhew
could try and— I got a couple more minutes. You do. And so because these are things that have been pressing for quite a little while, and we had these issues long, for a long period of time on I-44. This wasn't something that was created I like the project where you're finally rebuilding that stretch from the Sleeper exit on toward Waynesville. That pavement is in horrible shape and has been for several years. Yes. But I also don't see a climbing lane at Northview Hill, which is between Marshfield and Springfield. And that's one of the biggest slowdowns on Anywhere on I-44. Is that just not highlighted here, or we haven't considered that?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
I don't think that's— that's not in our plan right now.
Don Mayhew
Okay. All right. Um, so last thing I've got, Mr. Chair, is, um, the, the gas tax that we passed a few years ago. Um, so it's not bringing in what we thought it was going to, is it?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
No, it— I think it's probably about what we projected. You know, certainly we have projected that gas tax revenue will turn flat and slightly decline in the out years. And we're— every time we've projected that, we've seen a growth in gallons burned. And really, it's about how many gallons get burned, right? Because it doesn't matter what the Mm-hmm. And so we have been pleasantly surprised that when we had projected flattening of the gas tax revenue, that for the last 3 or 4 years, we— the gallons burned has gone up enough that it continues to rise at a really modest pace. Mm-hmm. But I think now what we're seeing is that flattening is happening. And so, for our next 5-year plan, we're projecting a 0.5% reduction year over year in the fuel tax part of revenue. Now, I don't know what, you know, $5.50 diesel and $4 gas is going to do to consumption. I think if that continues much longer, we'll probably see a little different outcome here.
Don Mayhew
Well, it certainly depresses demand. Continuing on, there was a component of that gas tax where people could file for a rebate, and that was one of the selling points to the legislature, and that, well, you know, it's going to be mostly people from out of state that's going to be paying this, and that, you know, that person can— the citizen can apply for a refund, and so therefore it will have less impact on people in the state of Missouri. So talking to the Department of Revenue, that is— there's an enormous amount of fraud involved in it. They were fortunately able to catch some of it, but they're still on the order of a couple of million dollars in claims as of 2025. And they spent significant amount of time Dealing with the rebate issue to the point where they're spending a lot more money dealing with this particular gas tax than they would with anything else that they do for you guys. And there's a significant amount of money that is spent not just with that, but also doing the collections for the regular gas tax. But there was a couple of things that came out of it. That, that was shocking to me. The— in 2025, the average refund was $162,000, $163,000, which I think that's a little bit high for an average citizen to start with. But the largest refund was for $278,000, almost $279,000. So that was one One group, one individual that was making a claim of $279,000. And we assume that since they are probably a large user that they do that frequently every year. And I certainly don't think that was the intent, but we're obviously talking about someone who does a lot of transportation, so a trucking company of some kind or another. But they're all under $26,000, we know that. So we can imagine who that might be. Okay. And so, but it was told to us that those were the companies that most supported the gas tax because they wanted to see improvements in transportation. Turns out that might not be true.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
What we've seen is about a— it's been 0.5% of people asking for the The gross receipts, half a percent is what the refund amount has been.
Don Mayhew
Last question for you on that. I was told by an employee of the Department of Transportation that early on, the one— one of the largest refunders was the Department of Transportation. Is there any truth to that?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
I don't think— no.
Don Mayhew
Can you check into that for me and, and tell us?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
Yeah, we're not asking for refunds of the
Don Mayhew
gas tax. So no one, no, no subdepartment, no one in any official capacity with MoDOT had been getting refunds back to the department by using gas tax receipts? No. You say that affirmatively?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
I do.
Don Mayhew
Without checking? Okay, but you will check for us?
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
I'll check.
Don Mayhew
All right, thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Committee chair (Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight)
All right, thank you. Representative Burton, you had a quick sidebar.
Michael Burton
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, I just wanted to point out, I, I have appreciated this committee so much and, uh, the folks that sit on it, especially representative, uh, from the Mayhew district. And I just wanted to point this out. I'm hearing things like, I like your project, you're on track. I appreciate that. It's better now. Oh, good. I agree with you there. I love what you're doing there. There's a lot of good projects. And I think we've really come full circle. And I just had to point that out. I don't know if Representative Mayhew is looking to join MoDOT again. I honestly think he would be very beneficial, but I just had to point that out. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Don Mayhew
Redirect, Mr. Chair. Proceed. Um, it would not be accurate to say that it was a, uh, a full endorsement of everything that MoDOT has done in the last few years, but there have been, under your direction, some significant improvements. I will grant the gentleman from the Burton District that, and I appreciate that. Which has always been my goal, as you well remember, that all of my discussions were about what will make it better, what will save us money. And I'm glad to see that we are moving in the right direction. Will I always have issues with one thing or another? I think that's my job here. So, um, but now you don't have to worry about it anymore. Someone else will take the mantle, perhaps Representative Burton will take over from where I'm leaving off. Thank you very much.
MoDOT director (MoDOT)
You don't have to be challenged, Representative. I appreciate your interest in transportation. That's a good thing. Thank you.
Committee chair (Joint Committee on Transportation Oversight)
And on that happy note, I will— we will conclude this hearing on the Joint Committee on Transportation. We are adjourned.