ST. LOUIS - For two years, progress on a new Mississippi River bridge has stalled because of a dispute between Illinois and Missouri over whether to build it as a tollway.
Now the deadlock could be broken because of Missouri leaders’ growing willingness to drop their demand for a $1 billion toll bridge.
Missouri lawmakers and highway officials are scheduled to meet behind closed doors this morning at the Robert Young Federal Building to discuss options for the bridge.
Missouri officials are backing down from a tollway proposal, according to Les Sterman, executive director of the East-West Gateway Council of Governments. Sterman noted the bridge would be smaller than originally planned.
Jessica Robinson, a spokeswoman for Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt, said officials are looking at other options than a tollway, including a less expensive bridge.
This reversal in attitude is being fueled by growing worries about the shelf life of $239 million in federal aid for the long-delayed span, as well as the conclusions of outside experts that a tollway is financially unrealistic because of the fact that four other non-toll bridges already cross the river.
“If we’re going to build a bridge, somebody has to blink,” Sterman, who heads a transportation-focused group of mostly elected leaders from Missouri and Illinois.
“The reports are that they’ve backed down at least at some point,” Sterman said. “Illinois has made all the proposals up to now and Missouri hasn’t.”
U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., and Missouri state Rep. Neal St. Onge, R-Ballwin, who called this morning’s meeting, could not be reached for comment Thursday.
U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Belleville, also did not return calls seeking comment. In recent weeks, Costello has met with federal highway officials and members of the Missouri congressional delegation to break the deadlock over the bridge.
Also unavailable for comment was Mark Kern, the chairman of the St. Clair County Board and chairman of the East-West Gateway Council, a position he has used to argue against the tollway and in favor of a $550 million, four-lane bridge that would be “coupled” with the existing Martin Luther King Bridge.
Missouri and Illinois transportation officials taking part in the current round of discussions over the bridge have agreed not to talk to the press for 30 days.
St. Louis business executive Douglas Albrecht, who as recently as last week was stumping for a major tollway bridge, likewise declined comment.
“With both Illinois and Missouri now talking, I don’t think there’s any sense for us to make comments, or actually anything until they spend some time together,” said Albrecht, a representative of the Regional Business Council, which consists of 100 CEOs from St. Louis area companies. “I don’t see us saying anything for 30 days, giving them the opportunity to have some real negotiations.”
For the past two years, progress on the new span into Illinois had stalled because of Missouri’s demand that it be built as a $1 billion tollway — an idea that Illinois leaders had rejected as unfair to metro-east commuters.
Missouri’s demand for a tollway began in early 2005, soon after Pete Rahn was named director of the Missouri Department Highways and Transportation. Rahn, an enthusiastic supporter of tollways, had adamantly pushed for a toll bridge because, he said, Missouri’s coffers were too low to pay for its share of the bridge.
Meanwhile, Rahn has repeatedly rejected Illinois plans to build the coupler bridge on the grounds it would be too small to accommodate the St. Louis metro region’s future traffic needs.
But on Thursday, Rahn’s spokesman refused to confirm or deny reports that Missouri was dropping its demands for a toll bridge.
“For now, we are declining comment,” said Jeff Briggs, a MoDOT spokesman.
This morning’s meeting in St. Louis over the bridge has been preceded by a flurry of discussions triggered by Blunt over the bridge.
On April 5, Blunt convened a meeting in St. Louis that brought together U.S. Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo., and St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, as well as a member of U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill’s staff, said Robinson.
Then, this past Monday, Blunt’s chief of staff met with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s chief of staff to discuss the bridge, Robinson said.
Robinson called Blunt a “governor that looks for creative solutions in all types of different approaches to state government.”
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