St. Louis County Executive Sam Page has asked the County Council to consider handing back responsibility for roughly four miles of county-maintained roads to the municipalities where they sit, a proposal that reportedly stunned local leaders when word of it spread. Among the roads on the table is a little less than two miles of Carman Road, which could fall to Manchester to maintain going forward.
Page sent a letter to the council on September 25 urging members to weigh the plan, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The letter reportedly covers roughly four miles of roads currently maintained by the county, including approximately four miles of Old State Road and a small chunk of Buck Road. The newspaper reports that Page framed the move as a matter of fairness, since the roads in question primarily serve local traffic rather than county-wide travel.
The proposal reportedly could add hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual costs to municipal budgets already stretched thin, and Carman Road alone could cost millions of dollars to repair, per the same report.
Wildwood and Manchester Already Juggle a Patchwork of Road Owners
The confusion is not new to the area. Wildwood's own public works department, which is responsible for the engineering design, construction and maintenance of the city's infrastructure according to the City of Wildwood, already lists several roads within its borders that belong to someone else. Clayton Road, Old State Road, North Eatherton Road, Kehrs Mill Road and Kiefer Creek Road are all owned and maintained by the St. Louis County Department of Transportation, while Route 100, Route 109, Route T, Route BA and part of Route CC fall under the Missouri Department of Transportation.
That layered system reflects the varied ownership of roads in the area. Manchester, for its part, has continuing infrastructure work of its own, funded through its Capital Improvement Program, its Parks and Stormwater Fund, and a 2016 Proposition S bond issue that raised $16 million for street and sidewalk repairs, according to the City of Manchester.
Municipal Leaders Reportedly Caught Off Guard
According to the Post-Dispatch, St. Louis County municipal leaders were shocked by Page's proposal to shift responsibility for some roads onto their own budgets.
The move comes as the county grapples with a projected $80 million shortfall in its 2026 budget, according to a report from the Show-Me Institute, which notes that a small county gas tax has been floated as one option to help fund roads and that cuts could otherwise hit services like the police department or highway projects.
A Budget Squeeze With a Longer History
The road fight is unfolding against a backdrop of tightening county finances that predates this month's letter. Back in March, Page told the council that the county needed to add $8.6 million in expenses back into its budget, including money earmarked for improving streets in unincorporated St. Louis County, as reported by St. Louis Public Radio. Page said at the time that dozens of roads in unincorporated areas needed attention, some potentially in line for traffic-calming and pedestrian-access upgrades.
That same report noted the council had already cut nearly $50 million from Page's proposed budget the year before, and that Page warned the county's finances could collapse by the end of 2026 without significant service reductions, even though reserves were expected to last one or two more years. The county has still managed to fund some road work in the meantime: last October, the County Council approved a nearly $6.2 million contract for repaving and infrastructure improvements across 16 subdivisions, according to First Alert 4, part of a $40 million allocation tied to funds from the Rams settlement approved in April 2024.
Whether that kind of countywide investment continues alongside a push to offload other roads onto cities remains an open question. For now, the fate of Carman Road and the rest of the roughly four miles named in Page's letter hinges on negotiations that, per Watzke's account, have not yet concluded.
