Maintaining County Roads

Funding Sources

Funding for road maintenance operations comes from two primary sources. The first is from the State of Missouri in the form of the county's share of revenues from highway user fees, which comes from gas taxes and motor vehicle sales, of which St. Charles County receives approximately $4.4 million.

The other source is proceeds from the road and bridge allocation on property taxes collected in the county. Approximately $19.7 million is received from these local property taxes.

Types of Road Maintenance

Asphalt Overlays

The unincorporated areas of the county have approximately 415 miles of asphalt streets / roadways. Each year, the County Highway Department spends approximately $2.9 million on overlays and sealing to restore and keep the roads in a good condition, which allows approximately 70 miles of roadways to be resurfaced and/or sealed each year. Work is done both by county forces and contracted out to private contractors.

Slab Replacement

The County has approximately 200 miles of concrete streets/roadways. The County spends approximately $7.3 million annually replacing broken sections of the various streets to help restore a smooth driving surface. Approximately 6,500 slabs are replaced each year, with work being done by both county forces and private contractors.

Snow Removal

The County has snow removal responsibilities on approximately 800 miles of streets and roadways, ranging from multi-lane arterials to subdivision cul-de-sacs. During a typical winter storm, the County Highway Department operates two 12-hour shifts, utilizing 40 trucks and 45 employees each shift. Work is divided between 35 designated "snow routes," with each route being assigned a driver for each 12-hour shift.

It is our goal to have each route treated and/or plowed twice each 24-hour period, but the actual progress is directly related to the intensity and type of storm. Extremely heavy snow, freezing rain, or severely cold temperatures impacts the time it takes for drivers to get through the various routes. Additionally, severely cold temperatures impact the effectiveness of treatment on the roads. Municipalities are responsible for their roads and the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) is responsible for highways and lettered/numbered state routes.