To The Editor:The current Missouri Supreme Court position is that tolling is a violation of the Missouri Constitution. That’s unchanged since 1965. So it’s either a constitutional amendment, or it’s a Supreme Court challenge. Who’s paying the bills for those?Because tolling is illegal in Missouri, and because we actually care about public opinion and respect that Missourians don’t want tolls, my company has been working with MoDOT for the last three years to develop a solution that doesn’t rely on tolling.You don’t hear much about it, because multibillion dollar engineering firms have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to convince MoDOT that tolling is not just a solution, but the ONLY solution.Why? Because they see the chance to force Missourians to pay them billions and billions over the concession period.You’ve never seen a bad toll road? Please visit Chicago! Their toll roads are a disaster. Or, for a good one, you can look to the Skyway, which was consigned at auction for the highest possible price, resulting in very expensive tolls.The reality is tolling was a solution in the 1950s, but it’s not a solution for today. The only people toll roads work for are the companies that get to force the public to pay for access to public assets.Because of the enormous progress we’ve made since the 1950s, there are new technologies that enable roadway investments to generate sufficient revenues to pay for their own existence without the need for tolls.MoDOT has been exploring these options with us for years to find a way to fix Interstate 70 that the average Missourian is not fundamentally opposed to. That effort is called Road to Tomorrow.Rebuilding I-70 using outdated tolling technology is a disaster that will set Missouri back by decades and rob us of the opportunity to be leaders in next-generation mobility. Missouri needs to look to the future for solutions, not fetishize the past.Problem solving isn’t about using money to run roughshod over the public like the pro-tolling vested interests, it’s about using innovation to find new solutions that the public wants and accepts.We’ve spent years demonstrating respect for Missourians and trying to find a solution they’re comfortable with, instead of using money and lobbying to bully them into something they don’t want.What have these multi-billion dollar vested interests done to try to solve the problem? Nothing. The only solution they need is to spend millions of dollars lobbying for the imposition of old, broken, illegal ideas Missourians outspokenly hate. That’s not a solution that respects Missouri’s needs, or the interests of Missourians. Let’s work for the benefit of Missouri and Missourians, instead of for the benefit of the establishments’ vested interests.Tim SylvesterFounderIntegratedRoadways.com