Missouri roads move ahead, but county roads still stuck

Missouri’s roads made the biggest improvement of all the nation’s roads, jumping 16 spots from 24th place to eighth place, according to a recent highway report by the Reason Foundation. The Reason Foundation produces public policy research on a variety of issues.

The foundations highway report measured the condition and cost-effectiveness of state-owned roads in 11 categories, including pavement condition and the number of unsafe narrow rural lanes. The report is from the year 2008, the latest one done.

The improvement is good news for drivers on Missouri’s highway system. Locally, many improvements have been made, including the work presently being done on Missouri Highway 6, the completion of a four-lane U.S. Highway 36, improvements to U.S. Highway 65 all the way to the Iowa line, as well as the restoration of numerous bridges in the area.

The bad news, at least for local drivers, is that one of Missouri’s lowest rankings was in narrow rural lanes (38th).

Highway YY may have the dubious distinction of being the worst rural lane in Daviess County. This narrow two-lane highway runs north and south and connects Hwy. B with Hwy. P. It curves to the left, straightens, and then curves to the right — a lot. It has no shoulder. It is littered with loose gravel and clumps of asphalt. The potholes jar your vehicle and the "trenches" all the way across the road threaten to knock something loose.

Anne and David Brooks have lived on Hwy. YY about 3 ½ years. Anne said her husband drives every day to work in Bethany and has gotten many a flat tire because of the potholes on the highway.

Anne said the automobile traffic on Hwy. YY is fairly light. Maybe a dozen families live alongside the highway, if that. And the farmers living down the gravel roads are spread out far and wide. One of her neighbors is a pig farmer. Hwy. YY, like many of the county highways, takes a beating from the trucks.

"They’re a wonderful family and it’s not their fault, their land is spread out and they have to use the road," she said. "But the pig trucks and the grain trucks and the tractors are hard on the road."

Highway crews have been resurfacing one lane of the highway, which was still soft and tarry in the October sun last Friday.

"They come out and try," Ann said of the highway work. "They don’t do a full lane. I guess they don’t have the money and I can understand that. They have to keep up the main roads. And we live out in the middle of nowhere. But it makes it hard. There are only so many ways to travel."

Anne home schools her four children so she doesn’t have to worry about the school bus coming to her house. But a school bus does come to pick up a neighbor’s child who is in preschool.

In the winter the snow doesn’t get cleared off as well as it does on the main highways.

"The salt and water that is left ruins it, too," Ann said.

Of the 32,000-mile state highway system, 27,000 miles (that’s 80%) are minor highways, which usually serve local traffic and are generally lettered routes like Route P or Route YY.

But while the bulk of the highway system is rural, those rural highways only carry about 20% of the state’s traffic. Currently, 69.1% of Missouri’s minor highways are rated in good condition.

The Missouri Department of Transportation says it has identified $64 million to put toward fixing the pavement on lettered and rural routes in the next five years. Of that, $5 million will come to Northwest Missouri for lettered routes, according to a district engineer.

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Specifically, the following is MoDOT’s 2010-2014 Highway and Bridge Construction Schedule for Daviess County. Some of the work is presently ongoing.

On-call preventive maintenance and pavement repair from Rte. 6 in Daviess County to Rte.

92 in Clay County. Cost: $423,000.

Resurface pavement and improve shoulders from Rte. 69 near Winston to east of Rte. CC near Gallatin. $AC-State: $1,861,000 State: $671,000.

Install centerline rumble stripes from I-35 in Daviess County to Trenton in Grundy County. Fed: $135,000 State $27,000.

Resurface pavement and improve shoulders from I-35 to Rte. 6 near Winston. AC-State: $720,000 State: $260,000.

Thin lift overlay from Rte. 69 to Rte. 6, near Gallatin. State: $484,000.

Bridge rehabilitation on Rte. HH over Marrowbone Creek, on Rte. V over Muddy Creek, o Rte. T over Sampson Creek, and on Rte. Z over drainage ditch. Funded by GARVEE. Project involves bridges R0378, P0830, N0262 and R0073. Part of the Safe and Sound program. AC-State $1,806,000 State: $782,000.

There are 6,924 bridges of Missouri’s more than 10,000 bridges on minor highways. Currently, 33.2% of the bridges on the minor highway system are also considered deficient, which means they are in poor condition, do not meet current traffic demands or do not have the

ability to carry trucks’ heavy loads.

Bridges in Daviess County on MoDOT’s Design-Build Project List include Rt. E east over Grindstone Creek (P0645); Rt. P east over Big Muddy Creek (P0510); Rt P east over Pilot Grove Creek (P0470); Rt. CC south over Dog Creek (P0318); Hwy. 13 south over Little Cypress Creek (K0169); Rt. M east over Lick Fork Creek (X0733); Rt. J south over Marrowbone Creek (X0117); Rt. K south over East Creek (S0791); Rt. J south over Dog Creek (S0182); Rt. K south over Pilot Grove Creek (S0793).