State DOTs, facing funding shortfalls, look to localize less-used roads. Why not in MO? | USAToday

Headlines are quick hits from media outlets from Missouri and around the world. Follow the headline link for the full story. The source of this headline says:

Decades later, states that gobbled up local roads no longer have the appetite to keep them. In growing areas, highways that once linked distant towns are now major local arteries. In some cases, states own odd stretches of local roads because of political reasons that were forgotten long ago.

States increasingly see their shorter, less-traveled roads as a drain on resources at a time when resources are increasingly scarce.

Inflation and fuel efficiency are sapping revenues from state and federal gas taxes. The federal government, which provides a third of the money that states spend on transportation, expects to run short of road money as early as July. This year's brutal winter, which added expenses for snow plowing and pothole repair, further strained state transportation budgets.

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State DOTs, facing funding shortfalls, look to localize less-used roads. Why not in MO? | USAToday

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MoBikeFed comment: Other states are doing it--why in Missouri? MoDOT's Missouri 325 plan shows that MoDOT has funding to maintain about 8000 miles of state highways across the state. But the remaining 26,000--many of which would be county or city roads in other states--are left in the cold.

Is now the right time to take a good hard look at turning some of those miles back to cities and counties?

Would local control lead to better decision-making about how those roads are designed, used, and maintained?