By Nancy Cave || I-73, the proposed $2.4 billion interstate, is unnecessary and fiscally irresponsible. Here are a few of the glaringly obvious reasons why.
First, SCDOT has no money. Recently the department had to get a $52 million bailout from the federal government to pay its bills. Secretary of Transportation Robert St. Onge acknowledges this wasn’t a one time event; it could happen again. SCDOT’s lack of funds means SCDOT has no money for I-73. But fiscal mismanagement is not stopping SCDOT and its commissioners from pursuing I-73 with audacity and impunity.
Second, even if SCDOT were flush with money, I-73 is an unnecessary use of taxpayer dollars because there is a less expensive, more environmentally friendly alternative to get folks to the beach; S.C. 38/U.S. 501 is a four-lane highway used today by millions of tourists to get to the coast. To upgrade 38/501 to an expressway would cost $150 million vs. the $1.29 billion price tag affixed to the I-73 southern segment between I-95 and S.C. 22. $150 million vs. $1.29 billion; taxpayers, do the math! Upgrading 38/501 is a more flexible, cheaper, faster solution that meets the need to move people into and out of the beach.
In addition to saving money, the 38/501 alternative would have less impact on the environment. I-73, if built, would destroy 300 acres of wetlands and over 4,000 linear feet of streams – the most significant environmental destruction of this generation. SCDOT doesn’t have the required permits to build I-73 or any portion of it, and the EPA has threatened to veto the permit decision. Why? Because SCDOT didn’t adequately consider less damaging alternatives, like upgrading 38/501.
A third strike against building I-73 is that the project would divert funds from badly needed road and bridge maintenance and repairs. SCDOT is responsible for maintaining 41,000 miles of existing roads. One-third of these road miles are in poor or mediocre condition. Over 2,000 of our state’s bridges are deficient, obsolete and in need of replacement. According to the department, to provide “C” or an average level of service on the state’s roads requires $765 million annually. SCDOT’s 2011- 2012 maintenance budget is less than half that at $330 million, and SCDOT’s estimate to build I-73 is three times greater than their road safety needs.
Unsafe roads and deteriorating bridges is a formula for disaster, and SCDOT knows it. Time and time again, however, they promote funding of I-73 yet pay short shrift to the very immediate need for road and bridge maintenance. So if we can’t maintain our existing road system and we don’t have the money or permits for I-73, why is SCDOT pursuing an interstate when there is a less expensive, viable alternative? The answer is politics. Politicians, SCDOT commissioners and special interests have used their muscle with the department to make I-73 the top priority; safety and fiscal responsibility be damned.
In April, the SCDOT commissioners, without any public input, voted to borrow $344 million, $105 million of which would go to an I-73 “interchange to nowhere” in rural Dillon County. The SCDOT bond proposal would use up 85 percent of their bonding capacity, leaving high priority projects and emergency repairs without funding. And the borrowed funds would cost SCDOT $30 million in debt service every year for 20 years. The “interchange to nowhere” could sit idle for years costing taxpayers $30 million annually while politicians boast they are building an interstate. If the proposed $344 million bond is not irresponsible enough, at the September SCDOT commissioners’ meeting they approved $11.5 million of taxpayer dollars for an unneeded intersection and bridge improvement they say will complement I-73. This unnecessary project requires SCDOT to come up with $291,000 in unbudgeted funds, money they will likely take from the road maintenance budget. There is no comprehensive funding plan for I-73. Politicians looking to build this interstate with federal earmarks haven’t heard the message, there is no money. And earmarks that require a state match will bankrupt SCDOT.
Quoting from the recent Chmura study on the economic impacts of the proposed interstate, politicians have used the sweet smell of jobs to bolster the need for an interstate. Today’s unemployed can’t wait until 2030, yet politicians continue to tout the I-73 dream. Don’t be fooled. Instead of promoting a road that has no permits, no funding and no future let’s improve the roads we have today to assure a safe, fiscally sound and prosperous future.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Cave is North Coast Director for the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League
By Bemused October 4, 2011 at 10:01 am
All true. Moving to the bigger picture, we must get rid of the SCDOT Commissioners. It is a system that is made for manipulation and outright corruption, rather than meeting the needs of the state. The current commissioners are worse than usual in their self-interested arrogance and incompetence (with the exception of Nuckles), but replacing them won’t fix the problem. The problem is that under the current system decision-making authority rests with a group of local pork merchants who can and do ignore the conclusions of qualified transportation planners and who are accountable to no one.
By The Colonel October 4, 2011 at 10:05 am
When I read this I thought “…boy, Sic has finally written an article on the I-73 issue that is lucid and makes good sense…”. Then I reread the byline – now it makes sense…
By alwaysamazed October 4, 2011 at 10:07 am
The commissioners may be a problem but don’t you think there are some of the impacted legislators who are involved in this fiasco too?
By riley October 4, 2011 at 10:17 am
Let’s just widen I-26 to three lanes in each direction—that way I’ll be able to make it from GreenVegas to ChuckTown faster…
By USC October 4, 2011 at 10:40 am
Now you supporting tree huggers? Widening 501 won’t solve the problem.
By Uncle Sams Misguided Child October 4, 2011 at 11:49 am
What problem is I73 and the expenditure of $2.4 billion supposed to solve?
By vicupstate October 4, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Then Governor Carroll Campbell wanted to extend I-20 from Florence to Myrtle Beach in the 1980′s. It never happened because of environmental impact, I believe. Will the same fate occur here?
By Sam October 4, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Lord help me, I agree with everything she said. There is no problem to be solved, except the one that involves all the new development that would occur in the interstate corridor. Wonder who has dibs on that property? Horry County Mafia? Yes, that is how I think of most of them. Myrtle Beach generates a lot of money, but then so does the Mustang Ranch in Nevada. Same principle, different ferris wheel.
By snodgrass October 4, 2011 at 1:32 pm
We don’t even have the money to maintain the roads we already have.
I wish the personal FICO score of every legislator would go up and down with the State’s balance sheet.
By tomstickler October 4, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Almost all the promotion of building I-73 comes from the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and the local politicians that sit on other boards and commissions. Their major argument is that building I-73 will bring 7.1% more tourists to Myrtle Beach.
This figure – and the projected 18,856 new jobs in Myrtle Beach and $909,900,000 in tourism direct expenditures — is based on an Economic Impact of I-73 study by Chmura Economics & Analytics, paid for by the North Eastern Strategic Alliance.
I checked the math on that study and found some incorrect assumptions and calculations that over-estimated the impact about four-fold. Nevertheless, proponents continue to repeat those rosy projections and cite those incorrect numbers. I guess they figure you are too stupid to read.
http://www.thesunnews.com/2011/09/23/2405811/i-73-study-riddled-with-flaws.html
By Gtown Conservative October 4, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Nancy Cave= rich yankee living in Debordeiu Colony.
She don’t care about the rest of us cause she already has hers’.
Typical limo driving liberal.
By Billy Bob October 4, 2011 at 2:48 pm
Let’s rip up all the roads, and gravel them and invest in horses and buggies – YOU FUCKIN’ NEANDERTHALS
By Uncle Sams Misguided Child October 4, 2011 at 4:39 pm
Billy Bob,
How do you go from people commenting on the worthiness of a project to “Let’s rip up all the roads, and gravel them and invest in horses and buggies…”? The cost of this project is huge. We do not have the money for it, and there would therefor be debt accrued somewhere for it. Our extant roads are in sorry shape, so they should get treatment first.
If we spend the same amount of dollars fixing the roads we have it will create the same amount of work, so why is a new road so sacrosanct?
Again, what problem are we trying to solve with I73? Is the problem that we have pork fed legislators and land owners to fatten? Is it that we need to shave 30 minutes off the trip of the garden variety Yankee?
What????
By JustTheFactMa'am October 4, 2011 at 5:07 pm
South Carolina doesn’t need Nancy Cave.
By DaisyDeadhead October 4, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Wait, DOT has no money? That *can’t* be true! They have enough money to harass a vegetable-stand-owner and try to ruin her business! They seem to have PLENTY of money if it means giving their friends a job:
http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2011/09/save-mauldin-open-air-market.html
By costcutter October 4, 2011 at 8:08 pm
How much is former SCDOT Commissioner Moot Truluck making as a consultant to this project? He has been seen many times in the DOT headquarters conversing with high ranking DOT planners and engineers. This guy has been a bottom feeder his whole life.
By Harry October 4, 2011 at 8:22 pm
I heard that DOT’s finances were so bad they would not be able to borrow the money to build this or any other road. Is that true>
By Myrtle Turtle October 4, 2011 at 10:49 pm
The MBACC must not have discovered this story yet… Way too many rational, reasonable comments that agree with the writer.
The NESA funded study sounds like an awfully familiar formula that the MBACC has used for years to convince the Horry locals that their 1% tax windfall was totally worth it: You pay a market survey company 7 figures per year to survey a handful of people and then present the “data” that supports whatever agenda you choose using flowery, hand wavy percentages.
By Fuck Perry October 5, 2011 at 11:47 am
Fuck Greenville. Nothing but right wing yuppies.
By Petey October 5, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Fuck Columbia. Nothing but left wing welfare recipients.
By ceilidh10 October 5, 2011 at 3:22 pm
The current path to the beach is slow, tedious, and boring. I want something fast. Who needs to drive through the economically depressed Pee Dee and all the redneck trailers and shacks??