The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission approved Wednesday $13 billion dollars' worth of improvements for the state of Missouri. Some of those could help mitigate the buckling of roads caused by rising temperatures due to climate change.
A viral video from Cape Girardeau made headlines two weeks ago when a car drove over a buckle in the road as it happened.
Arisa Prapaisilp is a maintenance liaison with Missouri's maintenance division. She said the extreme heat has caused roads to buckle across the state.
"I don't know the exact number," Prapaisilp said. "But here and there we're having road buckling issues."
The heat causes concrete to expand, and, with nowhere to go, the road buckles.
Prapaisilp said MoDOT puts expansion joints to try and relieve some of the pressure, but the weather is "just something [they] can't control."
Bill Buttlar is a University of Missouri professor specializing in pavement technology. He said Missouri roads have been in need of more funding to improve conditions.
Buttlar said some of that investment could go towards preventative measures that would lengthen the life of roadbeds.
"You can always use more investment to bring the roads up to sorta the next level,” Buttlar said.
The program the commission just approved is known as the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). It includes funding for for improvements to interstates 70 and 44, the fixing of low-volume minor roads, and improvements to bridges, airports and rail crossings, according to MoDOT's press release.
STIP aims to improve road maintenance, according to its Operations and Maintenance Plan. Work is scheduled to kick off in July 2026 and last until the summer of 2030.
Buttlar also suggested crowdsourcing as a way to improve road safety. He, MoDOT and eight other states are collaborating with automakers to use data from their cars to learn more about real-time road conditions.
