The Long Haul: OTO prioritizes transportation in 24-year plan

Imagine a weekend bike ride from Bois D’Arc Conservation Area to Fellows Lake, or training for a marathon by running from Rogersville to Clever.

To the avid cyclist or runner, that may sound like a daydream. To the Ozarks Transportation Organization, it’s $10 million worth of plans, and it’s just the beginning of $2.7 billion in transportation improvements desired for Springfield over the next 24 years.

The OTO ended a two-year public comment period on Aug. 17 with 483 online and postal surveys in hand, offering suggestions for a transportation development document dubbed Transportation Plan 2040, said Executive Director Sara Fields. The board approved the 200-plus-page plan during its Aug. 18 meeting.

“We’re growing so quickly – the population and the number of vehicles on the road are increasing – so we’re just controlling growth,” Fields said of the proposed projects.

The federally designated metropolitan planning organization every five years revisits the long-term plan covering Springfield, Battlefield, Nixa, Ozark, Republic, Strafford and Willard.

In addition to new bike and pedestrian routes, the plan includes highway expansion projects to support the booming traffic load. However, with only $1.57 billion, or 72 percent, of funds available for Plan 2040, some projects will be prioritized, and others, such as changes to Springfield’s transit system, aren’t likely to happen.

Public comments indicate residents using city buses would prefer shorter route times. Fields said the city would need to quadruple the buses in operation, plus have the corresponding capital for extra drivers, fuel and maintenance – an estimated $600 million tally. Currently, there’s only enough money to maintain the status quo, about $384 million.

“Even if we put every penny into transit, there’s not enough there for everything,” Fields said. “If we did that, there’d be no new roads.”

On the road again
As a metropolitan planning organization, OTO annually receives $500,000 for operations and controls roughly $6 million in transportation project funds through the federal Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act.

With two of the fastest-growing areas in the state over the past five years, Greene and Christian counties need to enlarge major connectors in order to keep pace with use. Expanding Interstate 44, James River Freeway, and highways 160 and 65 to six lanes, as well as widening Highway 14 from west of Nixa to east of Ozark, are high priorities in the draft version of Plan 2040.

“With a growing population, people are interested in those main roads that affect their commute,” Fields said.

Nixa City Administrator Brian Bingle, secretary of OTO’s executive committee, said improvements to major thoroughfares in Nixa are key for Christian County’s rising population. The county was Missouri’s third-fastest growing between 2010 and 2015, with 7 percent growth, or 5,424 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“Sixty to seventy percent of the workforce leaves town during the day and goes to Springfield for work,” Bingle said, adding Nixa’s current population is a little over 21,000. “That’s a significant amount of peak a.m. and p.m. traffic.”

Bingle said another project would continue southward expansion of Kansas Expressway via Nicholas Road to Highway 14, if funds were available. Greene County has committed to extending the highway to an eventual connection with Nicholas, known as South Cox Road north of Christian County.

“We are talking 2040 here, which might be a good ballpark period to ultimately make it south to Nixa,” Bingle said.

Funding’s future
Plan 2040’s funding shortfall is a problem, but one OTO and its board can do little about.

Because many of the plan’s highway projects involve coordination and funding from the Missouri Department of Transportation, OTO staff and board members say there is some concern as to how the state aims to supplant dwindling revenue sources. Operation and maintenance expenses are increasing, and the state department’s two largest funding sources, federal programs and Missouri’s fuel tax, can’t keep stride.

With a construction budget shrinking to an estimated $325 million by 2017, MoDOT received some good news in December with the passage of the FAST Act. Despite more fuel-efficient vehicles traveling the roads and drivers purchasing less fuel, the department in July 2015 also received increased gas tax revenues caused by lower fuel prices and increased consumption. MoDOT officials say additional funding bumped the department’s 2017 budget to $700 million and the total 2017-21 budget to $3.97 billion.

Although the jump added 855 projects to MoDOT’s worksheet, Fields said it doesn’t improve OTO’s projections.

Rep. Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, who sits on the Missouri State House of Representatives’ Transportation committee, said the General Assembly in May passed a one-time allocation of $20 million from the state’s general revenue fund.

“No one can build a long-term capital improvement plan if you only know what you’re going to get two, three or four years from now. The state’s infrastructure needs more than just a short-term fix,” he said. “Our roads and bridges, especially because of our geographic location, are economic issues just as much as they are transportation issues.”

Hough said after a three-quarter-cent sales tax ballot initiative was voted down in August 2014, Jefferson City’s appetite for proposing additional taxes is minimal.

Meanwhile, Springfield seems to have found a workaround in cost-share programs.

Springfield Public Works officials point to expanding Packer Road north of Kearney Street and improvements at Mulroy Road and Highway OO in Strafford as public-private examples – involving Prime Inc., City Utilities, Jones Development Corp. and Burlington Northern Sante Fe – collaborating to move up project timetables.

It’s the type of relationship MoDOT finds appealing, Hough said, because tasks are done using fewer state dollars.

“That’s why there have been so many intersection improvements in our area: our local municipalities and counties have put their money into it, and that stretched MoDOT’s dollars,” Hough said. “Everyone has some skin in the game.”