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A bridge too far
Funding delays, public opposition still stall I-526
By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer
At two places in Charleston County, on U.S. Highway 17 South near its intersection with S.C. Highway 7 and where the James Island Connector reaches Folly Road, there are large berms that are the intended ramps for overpasses that would continue Interstate 526 on its semicircle around Charleston.
The berms serve as reminders of I-526’s incomplete status; the only remaining section would run across Johns Island and part of the Stono River, connecting West Ashley to James Island.
Currently, I-526 forms a 19.26-mile arc around Charleston, with the western terminus at Highway 17 west of the Ashley River and the eastern terminus on Highway 17 North east of the Cooper River. Both sections go north and meet at Interstate 26 near the Charleston International Airport. The James Island Connector runs from Folly Road to Calhoun Street in downtown Charleston.
However, continuing the interstate across Johns Island has not been an easy road. Funding delays and public opposition to the project have combined to stall the project over the past few years.
At the completion of the James Island Connector more than a decade ago, the road was intended to keep going when money became available. The S.C. Transportation Infrastructure Bank voted last June to approve Charleston County Council’s funding request for the extension.
Those funds, $99 million of the $420 million needed for the project, are in Charleston County’s coffers. But the money is barely enough to get started.
“In the mid-90s, the (state) Department of Transportation pursued the alignment (the footprint of the project) and an estimate of $420 million was included in the application,” said Tony Fallaw, program manager with SCDOT.
The problem, Fallaw said, was that the Federal Highway Administration never signed off on the project. The administration oversees any project on interstate highways that involves federal funding.
“Then the project ran out of money and lost momentum, until Charleston County submitted its application to the state Infrastructure Bank,” he said. “There is an alignment in that application, but it hasn’t gone through the environmental process of full public hearings. It’s very preliminary.”
Currently, the SCDOT is not officially working on the project, Fallaw said.
“The money went from the bank to Charleston County, so at this moment, Charleston County is the manager of the project. There will eventually be an agreement drafted up between the county and the DOT, but at this time, the DOT isn’t the head of it.”
After the Infrastructure Bank approved the request, Charleston County released a community impact assessment in July 2006. The assessment, conducted by EDAW Inc. of Atlanta, projected population growth increasing and road conditions worsening over the next two decades.
Several groups used the assessment to form studies and recommendations, including residents of Johns, Wadmalaw and James islands who gathered under the moniker “Concerned Citizens of the Sea Islands.” CCSI held a rally Feb. 12 during which 300 citizens gathered at St. John’s High School with petitions and letters to elected officials protesting the extension.
In addition, the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Government’s recent computer simulations, which factor expected growth with road levels of service, show that in 2030, none of the major problem roads—U.S. Highways 61 and 17 and Folly Road—will be improved by the extension, with the exception of a small stretch of Main Road on Johns Island.
The extension is slated to run across the Stono River, touching a part of Riverland Terrace and Headquarters Island, and clipping a piece of Johns Island along the way. The potential loss of wetlands has the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League on alert, and various other groups have created Web sites, such as www.no526.com, that include online petitions.
“We are actually nowhere near starting this project,” said Fallaw. “It’s a lengthy process. We need to develop an alignment that everyone’s OK with. We need to have public information meetings and cultural resource studies like wetlands impact, endangered species, air and noise pollution. Once we get an updated environmental impact statement, then we go forward with public hearings and get a record of decision, and from there, we can purchase rights-of-way and get construction bids.
“And then, after all that, it would be about three to five years for construction. Right now, though, there’s barely enough money to get going.”
However, help may come in the form of a recently introduced House resolution, H. 3575, designed to bring sweeping change to the SCDOT. The bill will reduce massive waste, create a cabinet-level post for the state Secretary of Transportation and put such local projects as the completion of I-526 on a fast track, said S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell.
Harrell noted that H. 3575 will also significantly bump up the DOT’s budget.
“Over the next five years, we’ll be providing the DOT with an additional $40 million a year, until we reach a plateau of $200 million, he said. “From that point forward, we’ll be giving them $200 million a year to devote to critical projects across the state, projects that will be ranked in terms of their impact to safety, economic development, traffic volume and pavement quality.
Harrell pointed to the completion of I-526 as one of the beneficiaries of a revamped DOT.
“It’s well past time to build out that project,” he said.
Business Journal staff writer Dan McCue contributed to this article.
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