The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission on Wednesday approved a $500 million construction program for the Missouri Department of Transportation.
The program, which includes highway and bridge projects, is roughly one-third the size of the department's 2009 construction program, according to a commission news release.
"We've known this grim situation was coming," Missouri Department of Transportation interim director Kevin Keith said in the release. "It's as if we've fallen off a cliff."
During the last five years, the MoDOT budget was helped along by a combination of Amendment 3 bonds and federal stimulus money, but an eventual cut was looming as the Amendment 3 bonds began expiring and state and federal funding were decreasing, according to
previous SBJ coverage.
About $750 million per year had to be cut from its budget.
MoDOT's planning manager for District 8 in Springfield Frank Miller said that plans for scaling back were already in the works.
"You’re going to see a shift in projects from the huge capacity improvements like the 60-65 interchange – which is itself a $60 million project – down to just resurfacing and repairing bridges and replacing bridges and maybe even smaller-scale projects," Miller said in the June 21 story.[[In-content Ad]]