KC Senator Ryan Silvey says MoDOT should stop maintaining roads is has no funding for | The Kansas City Star

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:

Instead of talking about boosting road funding, lawmakers should be looking for ways to trim how much the state needs to spend, said Sen. Ryan Silvey, a Kansas City Republican.

“In every other state program, when the resources do not match the responsibility, we rein in what the responsibilities are,” he said. “Missouri has 33,000 miles of road being maintained by the state, where states of similar size have 12,000 to 16,000 miles.”

Missouri’s constitution would prohibit the state from mandating local government pick up the tab for any roads. But Silvey said, “we wouldn’t be mandating anything.”

“Nobody says those roads have to exist at all,” he said.

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KC Senator Ryan Silvey says MoDOT should stop maintaining roads is has no funding for | The Kansas City Star

MoBikeFed comment: It is true that Missouri maintains a far higher percentage of its statewide road network with state funds than do most other states.

Would those roads be better off left to local control? In some cases that might mean the roads are no longer maintained; in others, local government will pick up the responsibility and the tab.

Either way, the decision would be made at the local level, closest to those who depend on the road and the transportation connection it makes. Is that the most sensible level of government to deal with this kind of decision?

When MoDOT introduced its "Missouri 325 Plan" early in 2015, the idea was that MoDOT has the resources to maintain 8000 miles of its 34,000 mile system. It immediately raised the question--what should happen to the remaining 26,000 miles?

Perhaps those miles should be turned back to local control?

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