By Jane Lareau || In this time of dramatic deficits – both state and federal – and severe budget cutting, it is inconceivable to me how state officials can look the other way as SCDOT moves inexorably forward on spending $2.3 billion on a brand new, unnecessary interstate to Myrtle Beach.
Opponents of this new interstate have shown conclusively that simply upgrading SC 38/US 501 to an expressway — at a cost of approximately $150 million for the link between I-95 and the Conway Bypass — will achieve every goal Myrtle Beach boosters are seeking. Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina are upgrading – but inexplicably, South Carolina politicians and their special interest supporters are saying it must be a new interstate. Anything less to them is unacceptable.
Unbelievably, the current SCDOT plan is to borrow money to build a massive, useless $200 million dollar “interchange to nowhere” on I-95 and hope that the remaining $2 billion will somehow magically appear from the currently-insolvent federal or state transportation coffers.
The DOT’s own Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) shows this extravagant expenditure will shorten tourist commuting times to the beach by no more than 10 to 15 minutes. And that this proposed new interstate will consume all the remaining DOT funds needed to maintain and repair the state’s roads for the next decade.
Sumter representatives, where is your outrage? Rock Hill representatives, do you have no need for new roads or bridge repairs? Aiken politicians, do you not anticipate any new transportation needs for the next decade? Likewise Orangeburg, Greenville, Beaufort representatives – do you really have no problems with any of this?
Senator Lindsay Graham and Representative Tim Scott – vocal and passionate supporters of fiscal conservatism under all other situations – not only are not disturbed by this mother-of-all earmarks, they are harshly criticizing EPA for legally and correctly recommending the federal water quality permit be denied.
This is the elephant in South Carolina’s living room. Much has been written about proposed I-73 for more than a decade so it cannot be that politicians are not aware of it. This has gone on long enough. Where are South Carolina’s tax heroes? Where is the Tea Party? Where are the folks from Taxpayers for Common Sense and United We Stand? Where is the SC Tax Council? At least one conservative organization, the South Carolina Policy Council, has stepped up to say they are concerned about this expenditure. One courageous DOT Commission member, Sarah Knuckles, has expressed her outrage.
But the rest is deafening silence. In that silence is complicit support. If South Carolinians wonder why their taxes go up, why we are in debt as a state and elderly, disabled and poor people are seeing their services cut to the bone, they must ask how this boondoggle makes sense.
The facts are out there and easy to confirm:
o The most expensive road to date in SC
o The most environmentally destructive in our generation
o Loss of more than 3,000 acres of productive farmland
o Parallel and no more than 50 miles from another interstate.
o A savings of less than 15 minutes travel time
Boosters of the interstate say it will provide jobs and economic stimulus to the counties through which it passes. Some jobs, yes – during construction. But I-73 will bring no more bounty to this region than I-95 did to the Pee Dee after it was built. The area is still severely economically distressed. Greenville built a Southern Bypass more than a decade ago, believing that tolls would pay off the debt when traffic increased as a result of the new businesses that would come. It never happened and the debt holders are desperately looking for someone (state taxpayers) to assume their losses.
Myrtle Beach historically has about 13 million visitors a year, without an interstate. It is not suffering, and indeed has been the engine behind South Carolina’s impressive tourism industry. Note that Hilton Head does not have an intestate, but somehow manages to struggle by and New Jersey’s Atlantic City has no interstate and a lot more tourists.
In effect – there is no encumbrance to visitors to Myrtle Beach. Somehow they have found their way to this seaside entertainment Mecca since the 1950s using existing highways.
But boosters believe they are owed a new $2.4 billion interstate. They will not even look at affordable alternatives that upgrade the already adequate roads to expressway levels. Nope. It has to be an interstate. And, we taxpayers have to pay for it.
Again, fiscal conservatives, I ask, where is the outrage?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jane Lareau is a former program director for the S.C. Coastal Conservation League.
By trailerparkboy June 23, 2011 at 1:32 pm
The outrage Jane, is in the minds of a small group of elitists such as you, Dana Beach and the rest of the SCCCL crowd.
By Big T June 23, 2011 at 1:34 pm
To play Devil’s Advocate:
That portion of the state has brought in BILLIONS and BILLIONS and it will continue to do so. Not many locales are willing to prostitute themselves out like the Grand Strrand has for degenerates, Tattoo Parlors and Casinos.
Tourism is our No. 1 revenue producer. And for years politicos in Charleston, Columbia and Greenville RAPED the state’s budget to get FAT, while the money-maker on the Coast starved.
Where was the outrage then???
With all life-long, difference making projects, you don’t quit because Mr. Obama decides he likes a Depression-Era America.
This too will pass, and this Interstate will still be needed. It is short-sighted and narrow-minded to Knee-Jerk against I-77. That is for small, backwards thinkers.
By That Boz Guy @ The Beach June 23, 2011 at 2:35 pm
I agree with all of this, except for the part about how we are “not suffering” down here. Yes, Jame, we are, in spite of the PR bullshit put out by the Chamber — and that is because the very same people who are trying to ram through I-73 are the ones who drove off many of millions of dollars per season from the Harley riders, and who are constantly regulating entrepreneurs out of business and generally using the power of government to enforce their crony capitalist goals.
Not only that, but they are schizo. On one hand they are trying to do elitist social engineering to try to turn this place into Hilton Head, and on the other they are pushing a road connecting one of the most illiterate areas in the nation, the Detroit area, with its counterpart down here in Horry.
Since their aim was to get control of the black bike rally — and they get a big FAIL on that — what sense does it make to push through a road that will likely increase attendance at all rallies 10-fold in the future?
The main drivers behind this are I-73 Association head Brad Dean, the MB Area Chamber of Commerce, and their mostly RINO and Dem cronies (Ken Ard’s CofS Brant Branham included) — many of whom are now being investigated by the FBI and IRS for alleged RICO violations.
The chief lobbiest for the road, locally, statewide and nationally, is Debbie Harwell. She and her step-son Judge Bryan Harwell are facing intense scrutiny over conflicts of interest where the judge should have recused himself in numerous cases involving the county of Horry when step-mamma was their paid “consultant”. This includes, but is not limited to, the Doris Holt or Southern Holdings case.
These people are grifters, scam artists, snake oil salesmen. They are criminals. Danny Isaac is their hired stooge, just as is Ken Ard. Not only that, but Skeevy, snakey-eyed criminal RINO pol Alan Clemmons, an envelope recipient from Brad Dean’s “clearing house”, is thick as theives (literally) with all of them as well.
Wise up, SC Repubs, Dems, and everyone else. Especially you Libertarians. This is a road to nowhere, built on deceit, profiteering and eminent domain, and all attempts to justify it are pure bullshit.
Now, cue the resident RINO pretending to be a fiscal conservative, BigT, to try to paint me as a liberal loon for saying all this …
By jimlewisowb June 23, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Ms. Lareau you have stated your case well. However, South Carolina has no fucking interest in preserving what Mother Nature has given to us.
In this State if it can be bulldozed, plowed up, burned to the ground, uprooted, sandblasted to hell, covered in re-bar/concrete, or layered with hot asphalt then some well heeled fucking special interest group will find a way to fuck things up.
Let them build the damn $200,000,000 interchange. With a little luck the fucking insanity will stop there. In fact having an “Interchange to Hell” could become a major tourist destination.
Billboards could be placed hundreds of miles away promoting the “Interchange to Hell” much like those annoying damn fucking Pedro signs leading to the World’s Largest Septic Tank, South of the Border.
With a little luck NASA could feature the “Interchange to Hell” on future space flights. That way everyone one with access to a computer would be able to see how damn fucking stupid South Carolina bureaucrats and politicians really are.
Have a nice day Ms.Lareau and if you are ever in Chapin stop by Fat Buddies Two,have a boilermaker or two and chill out. Tell them I will pay later.
By Jack Klompus June 23, 2011 at 2:47 pm
Jane,
Upgrade 38/501?? …are you out of your dang mind?? Have you even been there recently. Good gosh…it’s a nightmare now trying to get from Conway to Myrtle Beach on 501 during the week much less facing the gridlock on the weekends. Are you proposing additional lanes or a controlled access highway (the existing small businesses would just love that-HAR HAR)?
The SCCCL is becoming marginalized due the extreme positions taken in seemingly opposing any form of development or improvement.
The depressed condition of the Pee Dee has little to do with the construction of I-95. If these “anti” positions had prevailed in the mid 60′s, we would be suffering from bumper-to-bumper traffic on US 301 from NC to GA.
I do however agree regarding the The Greenville(Southern) Connector. This was a boondoggle from the beginning designed to make a few fat cats some quick cash. Maybe in 20 years it will be useful.
In addition, The DOT and PRT have done little to promote tourist usage of SC 22 (Conway Bypass)completed about a decade ago. This highway, coupled with SC 31(Myrtle Beach /north-south parallel artery) have been a great investment but are woefully underutilized.
Remember, Sandy Island was preserved forever from development in a mitigation swap for the construction of these roads.
Big T is right—this region suffered while magnificent roads were built in G’Ville,Cola and Chas.
By Big T June 23, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Boz: Other than just hating PEOPLE, you don’t offer much in the way of reasoning. You may have a good point somewhere, but your presentation makes you look vindictive and/or envious.
This state has suffered from that approach way too much. Horry County is a breeder of that brand of filthy politics. It can be dangerous.
By That Boz Guy @ The Beach June 23, 2011 at 4:24 pm
BigT, you never refute the points I make, you simply assail me in general. That’s bad form, and doesn’t convince anyone of anything.
You want to talk filthy politics, point to people like Brad Dean, Debbie Harwell, Bryan Harwell, Alan Clemmons, Nelson Hardwick, Mark Kelley, Hugh Leatherman, Brant and Lester Branham and many of the other perps pushing the Highway to Hell and the use of EMINENT DOMAIN to screw people out of their property.
Pay close attention on MONDAY. Several of them will be revealed for the lying, thieving, duplicitous sacks of shit that they truly are. A genie will be unleashed that day that will never be put back in the bottle.
I don’t hate PEOPLE, I hate the actions of corrupt politicians of every party and and ideological bent.
BIG difference.
By Bemused June 23, 2011 at 4:32 pm
A lot of the comments here overlook the core points: 1) Even the EIS on this project states that it would at best decrease travel time to MB by 10-15 minutes. 2) It would consume virtually all of the state’s highway bond capacity for 10 years. This is not a reasonable trade-off. So, aside from fantasy fiction involving people in Detroit saying to one another “hey, wow, it is now 15 minutes faster to get to Myrtle Beach, let’s go!!!”, this is a non-starter as a rational use of the state’s resources. In fact, the other corroding highways, pot holes filled only by the occasional VW that falls in, would probably produce a greater negative incentive to visit any part of SC, including the hideously overbuilt carnival that is Myrtle Beach.,
By Big T June 23, 2011 at 4:47 pm
NEVER believe the opponents’ manufactured facts. The ’15 minutes’ thing is like the liberals’ assessment of the US’s oil reserves. It’s why we are making Terrorist nations Bilionaires while we sit on vast deposits and our children want for shoes.
Liberals exist on Lies, Myths and Fables. Remember that…
Also: There are DEEP pockets of poverty in I-73 counties like Marion and Marlboro. I-73 would give the people of these impoverished and destitite counties a vehicle for economic development and jobs. Just like so many other counties have.
Liberals NEVER will put people before radical ideology. Mostly because they are from cushy up-bringings, and they got theirs. They can make a career out of denying the poor, and feel good about doing it.
By SkipinSC June 23, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Actually, both sides in this debate have pretty good arguments. Boz is correct in his point that the same miscreants who have totally botched the entire month of May in Myrtle Beach, tried to turn the “Redneck Riviera” into “Hilton Head Lite” and then imposed an extra penny sales tax to pay for their misdeeds and pad their own pockets are the ones driving the “I-73 Express.”
That being said, the idea of upgrading a road that is already overcrowded and totally inadequate is just not going to work. In the 90′s, I ran a retail store that faced out on 501. Every Friday and Saturday afternoon, it was a parking lot. And this was AFTER the state had spent millions to rebuild 501 out to the Carolina Forest area. That round of 501 construction was obsolete before it was built.
The time required to build I-73 is only going to add to the inadequacy of 38/501. If you add construction closures, detours, lane shifts and such, you’ve now thoroughly clogged the main artery from I-95 to the Beach.
Am I thoroughly pleased that the need for I-73 puts me in league with the crony cabal in Myrtle Beach and Horry County? Not at all. The fact remains, however, that as a businessman who does business in 5 counties, any easing of the gridlock my trucks experience every Friday saves me money.
And, while I do have environmental concerns, I think some who are using them as a way to stop I-73 from happening are, to say the least, disingenuous. We’ve seen too many instances where the progress of man has fallen prey to the effort to “save the (insert animal du jour here.)” This usually hides some other agenda.
TO be sure, there might be better times for a state to make a major expenditure in infrastructure; however, it will provide some construction jobs which are needed and the fact remains that if we continue to wait for the economy to turn, we’re only falling further and further behind the curve.
By Big T June 23, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Skipin, if I read you correctly, despite the conditioning of the left that makes you scared as hell to admit it…you think Jane Lareau is dead wrong, and she is demagoging the environment.
And, being as diplomatic as you can be, you are saying that Boz is placing his hate for People ahead of the welfare of the Grand Strand.
By That Boz Guy @ The Beach June 23, 2011 at 6:13 pm
The people that you seem to be promoting as being good conservative Republicans are anything but that, BigT. That is the problem with your whole argument, besides making stupid comments like claiming we have casinos in Myrtle Beach. Maybe you meant that certain pols want to bring them in, and that’s true. But that’s not the way you stated it. Don’t accuse me of not making coherent arguments if you spout such nonsense.
The MBACC is behind the whole I-73 push. It’s Brad Dean’s baby, even if he adopted it from others. If he falls, his costly baby falls too. And he is going to fall very soon.
The Chamber here is all about businesses using the power of local and state government to impose their will on the people and manipulate the economy by picking winners and losers, using unfair trade practices against the ones they want to lose, and other decidely un-American tactic that have nothing at all to do with free enterprise. I will leave it to others to decide whether or not this is true of the entire US Chamber as well. But it is worth noting that the US Chamber has given the MBACC their 5-Star accredition, so they must be down with the Brad Dean way. But maybe he has played that game well, but his problem is that he has been way too obvious about it.
You are pretending that liberals and Democrats are the only enemies of I-73, and that anyone with any environmental concern at all is one of them and an enemy of the state, and the same is true of anyone who brings up that very real concern of every conservative I’ve ever known, EMINENT DOMAIN.
Brad Dean, Debbie Harwell, Danny Issac and their cronies are supported by a coalition of what your type would call RINOs, the so-called “old money” down here which for the most part (like the Brittains) who did not come to any degree of prominence until the 1970s, and by the most powerful, mainly white Democrats in Horry County and the Pee Dee such as the Holidays. This is a fact. If you live here, you know it. If you don’t live here, you need to get educated about if before you make an even bigger ass of yourself by pontificating on stuff you don’t even begin to understand.
The retirees create no wealth at all, and these days, like most everyone else, they spend more money outside the city limits of MB than inside of it, due to the Ad Tax — imposed without the benefit of a vote by the citizens of the city. They don’t even contribute with their property taxes, in most cases, because in a desperation measure to get elected and to sell the whole Ad Tax concept to them, the Rhodes regime bought their votes by reducing their property taxes by 90%. Yes, I know, that applies to all home owners, but the number of them that are retirees is very significant.
Some of them are Dems, some Repubs. That party affiliation crap and your obsessive liberal/conservative crap pmeans nothing here. NOTHING! It’s all about money and land-grabs and manipulation of the economy to benefit the few, and having total power over others.
You’re a fraud, a bigger fraud than Sanfraud. God help us all if you are a actually politician with any power at all in this state.
By Bemused June 23, 2011 at 8:03 pm
The EIS for I-73 was written by contractors to DOT — not doctrinaire liberals. It is not conceivable that DOT would have accepted and presented a report with that particular political bias, particularly given the obvious pro-I-73 bias of the commissioners.
This doesn’t mean that traffic isn’t wretched in the MB area already. I’m willing to posit as a given that everything is wretched in the MB area, pooped on by all the people who have sucked dollars out of the area and want even more. It just means that I-73 wouldn’t be a magic solution.
By That Boz Guy @ The Beach June 23, 2011 at 8:18 pm
Bemused, I don’t claim that all who are pushing the road are “doctrainare liberals”. I’m responding to the absurd idea pushed by Big T that all who OPPOSE it are of that political stipe.
Look at the people I mentioned and tell me if any of them are truly doctrinaire ANYTHING other than self-serving, crooked pols.
By Bob June 23, 2011 at 8:21 pm
I never ever agree with FITSNEWS, but they have nailed this one. I drove daily the SC38/US501 route from Bennettsville to almost Conway for 7 years. There’s ONE TRAFFIC LIGHT (at I95)between B’ville and Conway, a distance of approx 75 miles!! Just put up some fences and lay down access roads for the residents, and BINGO!!!
By Tank June 23, 2011 at 8:53 pm
As a point of information, Atlantic City, NJ may not have an interstate, but the Garden State Parkway is a pretty major highway.
By BIG T June 24, 2011 at 1:23 am
Jane, Its simple. WE WILL NOT MISS THE ENDANGERED SKEETeR SNAKE OR ALLIGATOR that may get killed bui;ding the road
By Old Bike Dude June 24, 2011 at 7:19 am
All politicians understand that you must spend money in order to steal money. They learn that in PolScam 101.
By Christopher Gustavus Memminger June 24, 2011 at 7:46 am
Stop spending my childrens money to bring more yankees to Myrtle Beach. The “we get their money” argument would only be pursuasive if that money were spent on things that helped SC or created jobs. It won’t be and a whole new generation of farmers daughters will be working at gas stations and fireworks stands in the name of making Burroughs and Chapin and the road construction/MB Chamber cabal rich.
I hope all of Horry County splits off and floats out to sea.
By jimlewisowb June 24, 2011 at 8:15 am
Sounds like a plan.
However, a turd that large will not float for long.
By Nostradamus June 24, 2011 at 8:32 am
For once this year – no maybe the second time, FITS News has got it right. But this is a money maker for a lot of people, including the powers that be (read SCDOT officials) so it is probably unstoppable, short of an insurrection.
By BigT June 24, 2011 at 9:52 am
I’m will to gladly sacrifice a willing Horry County to interlopers, in order to fund the rest of our state.
If you live in the Pee Dee go to Surfside or Garden City. It is cleaner there. You used to could go to NMB but (after the housing boom) that has become a very corrupt fish bowl, filled w/ people you don’t want for neighbors.
If you live west of the Pee Dee, go to the Charleston beaches, or south of Charleston.
Mayor Rhodes (thankfully) told the Bikers to Kiss It, but you still have MB filled w/ Piercing Parlors, the gambling boats in Little River and easy-access escorts and a plethora nudie clubs.
Sin will always be w/ us. If you can relegate it to a place where degenerates wallow, it may keep them away from my children.
Other than that, environmentalists have gotten to be Stone Age promoters, who lie about anything that mankind uses to thrive. Anybody listening to this hag is not very smart.
Again, I-73 will help the people of the pooer Pee Dee counties get jobs. To try and keep these people isolated and poor is the only way democrats can get re-elected and continue the cycles of poverty.
By Tom Riddle June 24, 2011 at 10:32 am
Working I-73 to give greater utility to the port of Georgetown is one of the curious aspects that seems shamefully neglected, but we aren’t creating more waterfront property…
By Bill Rushmore June 24, 2011 at 11:45 am
I’ve read the comment thread and am still waiting for all those Tea Party faithful to chime in on why they support a taxpayer funded boondoggle spending project that is astronomically less relevant now than it was 10 years ago. Or are you all busy planning your next Nikki Haley parade?
By That Boz Guy @ The Beach June 24, 2011 at 1:06 pm
/// Again, I-73 will help the people of the pooer Pee Dee counties get jobs. To try and keep these people isolated and poor is the only way democrats can get re-elected and continue the cycles of poverty. ///
Again, the crony cabal pushing I-73 is mainly Repub, with some powerful Democrats involved. The same people have kept industry away because really good industry drives up the wage scale. The ones in control now have major hotels and restaurtants and mainly seasonal employees, so the wage scale is lower than low. They like it that way.
Trying to blame it ALL on Democrats won’t work. Of course, your hero John Rhodes WAS a Dem until 15 minutes before he filed to run for mayor, and his campaign manager, Sally P. Howard IS one of the most powerful Dems in MB … but why let the facts get in the way of your lame confiscatory justifications of tyrany, huh BigT?
By Big T June 24, 2011 at 6:43 pm
Boz: If you don’t think infrastructure does not spur development, you must have never been out of the Trailer Park…
The Grand Strand had funded every Intricate Interstate system in this stae, yet you have a 3rd rate highways system. So does the other 3 counties where I-73 runs.
By That Boz Guy @ The Beach June 24, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Once again, you evade my point. I never claimed that building I-73 would not spur development. And I’m assuming that you mean development of industry. Certainly it would, to a certain extent, and it is also true that these three counties could use more industrial development.
You evade my points relating to your constant harping on the theme of being some kind of super-conservative and anyone who opposes the road on any grounds being a deranged liberal. It’s a straw dog argument. By pointing directly to the high number of non-conservatives involved with pushing the project, I consistently shoot holes in your theory — and that’s why you refuse to address what I’m really saying.
Just looking at one of the players, part of what Debbie Harwell does is write grants for Federal funds for the various projects for which she is a lobbiest or consultant. So, besides using that bane of conservatives everywhere, eminent domain, to grab land for the road, how much of that much-hated money from Uncle Sugar will be involved? Do you know? Look at the ties between Debbie, her husband and step-son and so many of these other political types with decidedly non-conservative pols like Gresham Barrett, Katon Dawson, Lester Branham and Hugh Leatherman. Of the legislators from our area who are proponents of the road, the only one with any substantial fiscal conservative credentials to speak of is Tracy Edge. (I personally happen to like Tracy a lot, but I think he’s wrong on this issue.)
Give it up. Your arguments are toothless, and you, Sir, are truthless.
By Alain Lareau July 31, 2011 at 11:01 pm
Hi Jane, ,, give me a call , I may be able to help.