Gas tax increase of 10 cents over four years will be on the Nov ballot.

Is this to ensure funding for the MSHP doesn't come from general revenue?

Subject to appropriation, the state portion of the revenue generated by the increases in the rate of tax beginning July 1, 2019, shall be used for the actual cost of the state highway patrol in administering and enforcing any state motor vehicle laws and traffic regulations;

Does anyone know more about this? What could be the funding source?

There is hereby created in the state treasury the "Emergency State Freight Bottleneck Fund", which shall consist of moneys appropriated by the general assembly.

https://house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills ... 7S.06T.pdf

quincunx wrote: ↑

Jul 03, 2018

Gas tax increase of 10 cents over four years will be on the Nov ballot.

Is this to ensure funding for the MSHP doesn't come from general revenue?

Subject to appropriation, the state portion of the revenue generated by the increases in the rate of tax beginning July 1, 2019, shall be used for the actual cost of the state highway patrol in administering and enforcing any state motor vehicle laws and traffic regulations;

Does anyone know more about this? What could be the funding source?

There is hereby created in the state treasury the "Emergency State Freight Bottleneck Fund", which shall consist of moneys appropriated by the general assembly.

https://house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills ... 7S.06T.pdf

That might be a tertiary goal but it was put on the ballot (hysterically added at the last minute to a bill about license plates for veterans iirc) to raise money to tackle the backlog of projects MODOT needs to get done. Raising the gas tax was one of the primary recommendations of the State Legislature's Transportation Taskforce that met last summer.

Editorial about Prop D on the November ballot is a 10 cent per gallon gas tax increase over four years.

From the numbers in the editorial it sounds like cities would receive about $15/person/year. Counties $7.50/person/year. Does St. Louis get both? That would be about $7M for St Louis City that's also a county.

Missouri Times - The first editorial from the Missouri Times

In today's divided age, there seem to be fewer things that unite us as Missourians, the highways that we travel on are one of them.

https://themissouritimes.com/53832/the- ... uri-times/

Ironic that on the local level the highways are a means to sort and divide us.

Yes, the City also gets a part of the "counties" pot but very small since that formula is based on County Road miles, and we don't have many county roads vs the Cities formula which is population based.

Yes according to this sheet, St. Louis is expected to get $6 million: http://www.safermo.com/wp-content/uploa ... County.pdf

My main hangup about this initiative is that I don't want MODOT to blow cash on highway expansion, especially not an 8 lane I-70 across the state. Does anyone have a read on their finances, do they plan to spend this money on expansion? Will this be enough money for that?

^Thanks for that.

Certainly concerned we'll get more of the same. More expansions, more liabilities, low ROI, oops we don't have enough money for it all. Even now during this tight period they've done some expansion projects.

The Emergency State Freight Bottleneck Fund might be a poison pill. I think it's a way to take general revenue to subsidize road building. Will finding a bottleneck be as easy as finding blight?

On the November ballot there will be a 10 cent gas tax hike, estimated to bring in about $410,000,000 annually, of that 70% of $287,000,000 will go to MoDOT and the other 30% ($123,000,000) split evenly (15/15%) between Cities and Counties
City of St.Louis would get about $5,000,000 from the "Cities" pot and about $1,000,000 from the "counties pot"
here is to complete list for Cities/County distribution
http://www.safermo.com/wp-content/uploa ... County.pdf

biggest Q people have I would imagine is where is MODOT going to spend the nearly $3,000,000,000 over the next decade of this new revenue and a good starting point would be on page 40 of the East West Gateway regions long range page (obviously ignore the projects on the ILL side)
Of that $3billion, about 32% is slated for Metro STL (MO side)
https://www.ewgateway.org/wp-content/up ... 2045_1.pdf


(hoping to keep this separate from the catch all transpo thread and get a feel if people are inclined to vote yes or no and what should regionally leaders be pushed on to fund)

I'm inclined to vote no. Nothing to do with opposition to paying higher taxes, I just think that MODOT will use the money to expand highways & build new roads. Even with their current semi-starved state they built all those bridges between St. Charles and St. Louis County, which fueled sprawl without much regional population growth.

In their list of unfunded projects they do list multi-modal transportation and public transit but there's no guarantee this new money will go to that. Also listed is Interstate reconstruction, which I believe includes their goal of adding lanes to I-70, which I think would be a waste at best, harmful at worst. The list is here: http://www.modot.org/guidetotransportat ... e34-39.pdf

I'd be happy to have $6m more go to St. Louis City for roads as will happen, but other than that, I think the risks are too high for auto-centric boondoggles. They love to talk about how we have the 7th most miles of roads in the nation despite having just 6 million people. They should consider paring down that road infrastructure or at least committing to just maintain current capacity without expanding it. But I don't see that, so I'm likely to vote no.

FWIW, I think this proposition will pass.

I'll probably vote yes. I'm generally against tax increases, but knowing that our gas tax is one of the lowest in the nation makes me think this is a reasonable area to raise much needed revenue.

I'm on the fence. I'm not opposed to the tax increase. There just doesn't seem to be any restriction on how the money is spent and the whole "we're doing this to make the roads safer" spin seems a bit dishonest. That being said I think that drivers can afford the increase and it's probably overdue.

PeterXCV wrote: ↑

Sep 14, 2018

In their list of unfunded projects they do list multi-modal transportation and public transit but there's no guarantee this new money will go to that. Also listed is Interstate reconstruction, which I believe includes their goal of adding lanes to I-70, which I think would be a waste at best, harmful at worst. The list is here: http://www.modot.org/guidetotransportat ... e34-39.pdf

I don't think any of it would (or maybe just none of the state's portion) since there's a constitutional amendment barring fuel tax spending on transit, ports, rail, etc.

Go say something Thursday, October 4th at Maryland Heights Community Center in the morning at the public meeting. FYI they're ranked second lowest nationally in gas tax. Their work is focused on taking care of the system not expansion since the Great Recession. Voting yes.

Something else to consider is what they might do if this fails

Nothing - Let MoDOT deal
Try again at a gas tax increase either on the ballot or MoLeg could pass a small one on its own
Shrink the system - Doubtful since it's an entitlement program.
Issue more debt- Debt service was $295M this year
Tolls - not popular
Cut tax credit programs like Historic and Low Income Housing. Ironic in that often credits go to projects next to already existing infrastructure negating the need to build new elsewhere.
Take general revenue from schools, health care, etc - Further mispricing road use

Increasing the gas tax and tossing the proceeds in the garbage would at least be good for the environment.

quincunx wrote: ↑

Oct 20, 2018

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Sep 12, 2018

Yes, the City also gets a part of the "counties" pot but very small since that formula is based on County Road miles, and we don't have many county roads vs the Cities formula which is population based.

What roads in the city are county roads? Who makes the designation? Is it calculated based on miles or lane miles or?

Reading the statute I see that the city gets 5% of a 5% added for counties (went from 10% to 15%) in 1994. And for counties it's the half amount of miles of county roads in unincorporated areas and half the land value in incorporated areas in proportion to the state as a whole

I voted yes. Hope it passes.

StlToday - Proposition D really involves a user fee, not a tax

Since MoDOT has been forced to do exactly that, it has concentrated on maintaining its existing transportation system. It has not met the need to expand its system in St. Charles County, which is growing, and in other areas in the region that need to be growing. On nine out of the last 14 projects on the state system in St. Charles County, MoDOT has paid only 40 percent of the cost, while the remainder has been financed by the county, our cities and federal money the county and cities have been able to procure. We cannot continue to finance the state transportation system at the expense of county and municipal systems.

Prop D is not an attempt to create a revenue windfall for MoDOT. It seeks only to create over four years an adequate user fee that will help MoDOT recover the purchasing power it has lost since 1996. That is necessary to maintain the existing system throughout the state and to expand the system to meet the needs of new businesses and residents in the St. Louis region.

https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/column ... c0c90.html

MO has 6th most road miles in the US and only the 18th largest population.

STL has the SECOND most road miles per capita in the US with the 20th largest population.

i just can't in good conscience vote for prop D if MODoT is planning further expansion.

urban_dilettante wrote: ↑

Nov 06, 2018

MO has 6th most road miles in the US and only the 18th largest population.

STL has the SECOND most road miles per capita in the US with the 20th largest population.

i just can't in good conscience vote for prop D if MODoT is planning further expansion.

none of this will go towards system expansion and MoDOT hasnt expanded the system in decades (minus route N in St.Charles)
we have one of the largest systems because in the 1950 the state took over County Roads that in every other state the counties maintain.

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Nov 06, 2018

MoDOT hasnt expanded the system in decades

In what sense? According to the FHWA MoDOT had
32,383 miles and 69,769 lane-miles in 1996
33,856 miles and 77,679 lane-miles in 2016
1,473 miles and 7,910 lane-miles more

Since the last gas tax increase, haven't both 364 and 370 been constructed?

And they're on the hot seat to expand I-70 past Wentzville. St. Charles is going to kick and scream until it happens.

Why are tolls so scary? How many large cities have them? A sh*t ton?