Kansas City, Mo — Kansas spends far more per mile on its roads than Missouri, and the states get what they pay for.
Missouri roads are among the worst in the nation, according to a transportation research group's analysis, while Kansas has some of the best.
Ohio trucker Joe Jones has seen the difference himself. Jones experienced a troublesome Missouri stretch of Interstate 70 recently before stopping in Oak Grove.
"They're the worst roads I've ever seen," he said.
Federal records analyzed by the Road Information Program, a Washington-based nonprofit transportation research organization, rank Missouri second-worst and Kansas seventh-best in road quality nationwide.
Only Louisiana has a higher percentage of substandard major roads than Missouri, said Frank Moretti, director of research for the Road Information Program.
Forty-eight percent of Missouri's major roads were rated poor or mediocre in 1999, the group found, compared with the national average of 28 percent. The study rated 15 percent of Kansas roads as poor or mediocre.
The study also found that Missouri's 1999 road budget provided just $12,399 in capital investments per lane mile that year, compared with $29,227 in Kansas. The national average was $23,967.
The less a state spends on its roads, the longer they go without repair, the more they deteriorate, and the harder they are to fix.
Kansas taxes gasoline at 20 cents a gallon, compared with Missouri's 17 cents. Kansas also has borrowed more money through bonds and has drawn on the state's general fund to help finance its highways. Missouri has begun to borrow for its roads, but the money is just now coming in.
"Clearly the difference is largely due to the Legislature making roads a priority," Moretti said.
Sen. Morris Westfall of Halfway, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said lawmakers know Missouri roads need help. Five pending bills, as well as a plan from Gov. Bob Holden, have sought as much as $650 million in new funding. The bills propose different combinations of increased fuel taxes, sales taxes and registration fees.
Time is wasting, said Charles Nemmers, director of the Transportation Infrastructure Center at the University of Missouri.
When roads start to go bad, problems multiply if not repaired, Nemmers said.
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