Greenville News | Report: State’s roads headed downhill
COLUMBIA — South Carolina faces a $22 billion shortfall in funds for needed work on roads and bridges over the next decade, according to a national study released Wednesday by a group pushing for more road construction.
At least 26 percent of the state’s major roads are in poor or mediocre condition, and 25 percent of the state’s bridges show significant deterioration or don’t meet current design standards, according to the study, done by TRIP, a national nonprofit research group, for the South Carolina Alliance to Fix Our Roads.
Among the top 10 most deficient bridges, according to the study, are three in the Upstate, two of them crossing the Enoree River in Greenville County.
“We can fix our roads,” said Sen. Larry Grooms, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee. “But too many members of the General Assembly are saying no, we’re not going to do it. That’s unacceptable.”
Grooms is pushing a House-passed bill that would transfer revenue from the sales tax on cars from the general fund to the state Department of Transportation. The bill would split the revenue between DOT and the State Transportation Infrastructure Bank, eventually raising $100 million a year for road and bridge work.
The bill has yet to get a hearing in the Senate, so House leaders have placed it in their version of the budget. Senate leaders said Wednesday that Senate rules don’t allow them to consider a law placed inside a budget, but Grooms said the rules only keep senators from placing a law inside the budget.
Grooms said even if the sales tax bill passes, the state will have to find other solutions to its infrastructure needs, including diversifying the state’s revenue stream for road work, most of which now comes from the gas tax.
“If we can fund Elvis impersonators, green bean museums and piggy festivals with General Fund dollars, why can’t we fund highways?” he asked.
He said a study committee will meet this summer to look at privatization alternatives and what other states have done to fund road projects. He said toll roads, high-occupancy lanes and toll lanes are among the possibilities for building or widening roads.
Wednesday’s report estimates that the average South Carolinian pays $265 a year in additional repair costs, tire wear, increased fuel consumption and other costs associated with driving on roads in need of repair.
The state’s traffic fatality rate is the sixth highest in the nation, according to the report, and 44 percent above the national average.
Published in the Greenville News
by Tim Smith
May 15, 2008
