Is everybody sitting down? I’ve got something shocking to tell you: I might be voting for a Republican for Missouri governor in 2024.
Yes, indeed. Sometimes circumstances dictate a shift in political loyalties.
What made me almost gasp this morning was a headline in the Missouri Independent that said, “Lawmaker wants to use Missouri surplus to widen I-70.”
The story, written by Rudy Keller, said state Sen. Bill Eigel, a Republican from Eldon Spring, was proposing to use at least $2 billion of Missouri’s $6 billion budget surplus to widen I-70 to three or four lanes between Kansas City and St. Louis.
This idea has been long talked about, but this is the first legislator I know of who has stepped forward and said effectively, “Let’s do this.”
Before even reading the whole story, I looked up Eigel’s phone number, called his office and left a voice message saying I was 100 percent behind the project and would consider voting for him for governor if his plan was implemented.
I’d never heard of Eigel, but just the fact that he came out with a bold proposal for a crying need at a time when money is cascading like water over Niagra Falls was enough to make me call his office.
Eigel, an Air Force veteran, owns St. Louis Skylights, a skylight installation company. From photos, he looks like he’s in his 40s. He’s a founding member of the Senate Conservative Caucus, which is troubling, but a conservative Republican is going to be elected governor, anyway, so what the hell? (In the race to succeed U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, I’m sure you noticed that the Republican candidates were falling all over each other to claim the mantle of “most conservative.”)
Eigel filed his bill Thursday, the first day bills could be “pre-filed” for the 2023 legislative session starting in January. It was one of several hundred bills filed. Eigel had to think his bill would upstage the vast majority of bills, and he was right.
Keller quoted Eigel as saying, “I don’t think it is necessarily a great thing for cash to be sitting in the government’s bank account. We need to invest those funds in actual big infrastructure projects like I-70.“
The story went on to say: “Under his proposal, any general revenue funds in excess of a $4 billion cash balance would be transferred to the project fund. And from ongoing revenue, Eigel would dedicate about 2% annually — nearly $300 million this year — for 10 years.”
Eigel said the formula could generate as much as $9 billion for the project. MODOT Director Patrick McKenna told Keller he was not sure how much it would cost to widen I-70. This summer, the department estimated it woud cost $2.75 billion to add a third lane in each direction, primarily by building within the current right of way. An accurate estimate for four lanes would be extremely difficult to develop because four lanes would involve the acquisition of additional right-of-way, and many interchanges would need to be rebuilt.
…Well, I say, Bill, ol’ buddy, let’s just keep it simple and go with three lanes in the existing right of way. Just make sure they’re wide enough…I’m afraid with four lanes the far-left lane would become grounds for a daily Missouri Grand Prix, with people routinely going 80 to 100 mph. It could be a nightmare for law-abiding motorists and the Highway Patrol.
Yeah, just give us three lanes, and look for me in the far right lane; I’ll be plugging along at 60 to 65 and praying that the speed demons in the outer two lanes leave me alone.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Where the hell are you driving, slowpoke? I drive from Edwardsville downtown to eat in my dives on I-70 and it’s already common to do 80 – 100 MPH on that stretch. Who knows what you could do out in the country, but I remember a car dealer in North Dakota who routinely drove his sports car from Bismarck the 99 miles to Jamestown at 180 – 200 MPH. 3 lanes on rural I-70 past around Odessa with highway dividers prohibiting HP Troopers from annoying you could easily have the outside lane doing an average of 120.
They might have to wall off the inside lane for those planning to live to be 80…
You may not live to be 80, but you’ll damn well feel like it. You need to buy a motorcycle.
I’m with you, Jim. MoDOT knows the need for the added capacity, and for the cost both to add that capacity and to rebuild/rehabilitate the existing four lanes and interchanges. With the cost of money going up now with fed rate hikes, using available cash instead of borrowing is the obvious route to fund this. Maybe a clear-headed Eigel stepping forward with a sensible vision of government, not some craven politician catering to the whacked-out radical right social agenda, might move Missouri away from the crazies caucus toward effective politics. Okay, a fellow can dream, can’t he?
Oh, and one more thing. Let’s all say it together: JOBS.
I would much rather see a high-speed rail line! Get me out of the traffic, and let me drink my coffee and read my paper.
I agree 100 percent, but that just isn’t going to happen, not in the next 20 years, anyway.