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She was teaching business and international management classes at the University of Missouri-St. 香港三级片, and many of her students said they were having a hard time getting to class or to work with the reduced transit routes and schedule.

Moore approached the problem like an academic. She dug into the numbers, trying to understand why there weren鈥檛 more transit opportunities in St. 香港三级片, especially in neighborhoods serving people at or near the poverty line. Her research focused on state transportation funding, and what she found made her mad.

鈥淲hat I discovered was, the funds were not being distributed appropriately,鈥� Moore said.

In fact, like in many areas of state spending, St. 香港三级片 and other cities in Missouri 鈥� the places where more people live and most of the economic activity in the state is 鈥� were getting (and still are) much less than their fair share of transportation dollars. 鈥淭hey need to spend the money where people actually live and drive.鈥�

In Missouri, that鈥檚 not the case.

According to research compiled by the Missouri Coalition for Better Transportation, of which Moore is a member, the Missouri Department of Transportation has been shorting its cities, particularly St. 香港三级片, for more than a decade. The coalition, which includes Les Sterman, the former executive director of the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, has produced a research document titled 鈥淏ack of the Bus鈥� that outlines the disparities.

For instance:

• More than 80 percent of gas and vehicle sales taxes are generated in urban areas, but the cities receive less than a quarter of overall MoDOT spending.
• Over the past decade, MoDOT spent 80 percent of its funds in rural areas, even though they carry only 36 percent of the traffic.
• In Missouri, urban taxpayers receive only 35 cents on the dollar for their investments.

Moore calls this 鈥渉ighway robbery,鈥� and she and others are trying a new strategy to do something about it.

In August, Moore, as head of the better transportation coalition, and Esther Haywood, president of the St. 香港三级片 County NAACP, each wrote U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., and asked him to seek Justice Department intervention into Missouri鈥檚 disparate road funding.

To Moore and Haywood, this is a civil rights issue. By failing to fund transportation fairly in Missouri鈥檚 biggest cities, where the majority of black residents live, the state is out of compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, they argue.

鈥淔or half a century, long past the civil rights era, transportation in Missouri has discriminated against people living in urban areas,鈥� Haywood wrote.

Fixing Missouri鈥檚 transportation issues will be more difficult than repaving an interstate highway during St. 香港三级片鈥� rush hour. The problems are structural.

Missouri鈥檚 constitution has been interpreted to not allow state transportation to go to transit funding, which immediately puts the state鈥檚 cities at a disadvantage. Just as important, the state is responsible for almost 34,000 miles of roads, making it the seventh-largest highway system in the country, far out of whack for a state that is 18th in population. Meanwhile, Missouri underfunds its roads and bridges, consistently ranking in the low end of states for highway funding.

Last legislative session, Sen. Ryan Silvey, R-Kansas City, tried to address one of the problems, proposing a bill that would return thousands of rural road miles to the counties that used to be responsible for them. The bill never got out of committee.

Moore wants the Justice Department to come back to St. 香港三级片 and follow the model it did in assessing police and court disparities in Ferguson. Just an investigation by the Justice Department viewing transportation through a civil rights lens 鈥� which the Ferguson Commission also called for 鈥� might put pressure on lawmakers to return more transportation dollars to St. 香港三级片 and Kansas City, where they can have a greater impact on the state鈥檚 economy.

Right now, there is momentum building in St. 香港三级片 for a serious discussion on improving the region鈥檚 investment in transit, making it easier to connect poor people to jobs, to health care, to the city鈥檚 life. Building new transit lines would be much more economical if St. 香港三级片 was getting a fair share of its transportation dollars returned to it.

鈥淲e clearly have disparate impact,鈥� Moore said. 鈥淢ore than $1 billion a year is not going back to where it was paid. This is real highway robbery.鈥�