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The Missouri Senate Appropriations Committee chair is defending Missouri’s $2.8 billion plan to rebuild and expand I-70 to six lanes from St. Louis to Kansas City.
State Sen. Lincoln Hough (R-Springfield) joined us live on 939 the Eagle’s “Wake Up Mid-Missouri”. He responded to House Transportation Accountability Committee chair Rep. Don Mayhew’s (R-Crocker) comments that the I-70 project is the biggest boondoggle in Missouri history. Mayhew says I-44 should be six-laned instead.
“What the (state) representative I guess maybe doesn’t understand is that I-70 is actually a shovel-ready environmental study works already been done. It’s ready to go. The awarding of the first bid I think is going to happen by the end of February you know starting in Columbia and heading east over to Kingdom City,” says Senator Hough.
He tells listeners that I-70 is the nation’s oldest interstate. Senator Hough also tells “Wake Up” that Missouri is currently spending anywhere from $80-million to $110-million per year on I-70 maintenance. He also says the $2.8 billion I-70 expansion plan contains $20-million for environmental study work on I-44.
“Again it’s kind of unfortunate because if you’re the chair I guess of (Missouri) House Transportation Accountability Committee, you should probably know this stuff. But the environmental study work hasn’t even been completed on I-44,” says Senator Hough.
You can hear the full “Wake Up” interview with Senator Hough here.
