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There was once a plan to build a new interstate to the north, just for over-the-road trucks. There was talk of turning I-70 into a toll road. There were competing tax hike discussions in the legislature. All the plans and talks stalled, like an overheated car on the side of the road.

Then came the influx of post-pandemic federal money last year, courtesy of the Biden administration and Congress. Missouri lawmakers passed a bill, supported by Gov. Mike Parson, to infuse into expanding I-70 to three lanes each way from Warrenton to Blue Springs.

Last weekend, I drove in narrowed lanes next to a massive concrete pour in the middle of the interstate between Kingdom City and Columbia — the first stretch of the expansion.

Gov.-elect Mike Kehoe wants to protect the project from political interference. Kehoe, a Republican, is pushing back against proposed legislation by members of his party to give the governor more control over the Missouri Department of Transportation.

“You don’t want politics deciding what road projects get done because it could be a disaster,� Kehoe told the Post-Dispatch’s Kurt Erickson. “Trying to have an independent commission that works through that seems to have worked well for us. I know other states that say, ‘I wish we were more like Missouri.’�

Lawmakers are always playing politics with various state commissions — from education to conservation to transportation — as they try to carve out more power for themselves. That’s why that last phrase stuck with me as I read the morning newspaper Tuesday.

Directly below the story about the Department of Transportation was one about Kehoe’s proposed new director for the Department of Public Safety. The story mentioned that Kehoe has vowed to continue the yearly ritual of trying to revive state control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.

That’s a political power play in which no other state — not a single one — says, “I wish we were more like Missouri.�

There is only one municipal police department in the country that is under state control, and that’s in Kansas City. Of course, St. Louis used to be the second one, a practice that dated to the Civil War. But Missouri voters returned control of the city’s police department to local officials in 2013.

Unlike his position to keep politics out of the road-building process, Kehoe wants to exert control over the St. Louis police, a process rife with political considerations, at a time when violent crime is down in the city.

So Mayor Tishaura O. Jones and business interests like Greater St. Louis, Inc. — which endorsed Kehoe for governor — will spend the next few months traveling to Jefferson City — across the under-construction I-70 — to make the same case they’ve made the past few years. And the bill to take over the police department will die a slow death.

What a colossal waste of time.

There’s a reason lawmakers in both parties worked hard to find a way to expand I-70. It connects the two major drivers of commerce in Missouri: Kansas City and St. Louis. While it’s always been politically easy for Missouri Republicans to take potshots at the cities — which are generally run by Democrats — it’s bad business.

Kehoe, who was born and raised in St. Louis, should know that. He wouldn’t consider asking lawmakers to take over control of policing in Jefferson City, or in Phelps or Pulaski counties, where he raises cattle. But he’ll do so in St. Louis with zero evidence that it’s a good idea.

The future governor was correct that politicians meddling in road projects would be a disaster.

Why should policing be any different?