Toll roads: Highway robbery or a path to progress?

Gather up your spare change. Cash-strapped states across the nation are turning to pay-as-you-go toll roads to fund the upgrade and expansion of aging and overtaxed interstates and highways.

“Tolling is the trend du jour,” said Rick Todd, president of the South Carolina Trucking Association, representing 800 trucking companies across the Southeast.

South Carolina over the years traditionally has constructed freeways — emphasis on the free. Truckers would like to keep it that way, Todd said, but they, perhaps more than anyone, understand the reality facing highway officials and are willing to bend on this point.

The bottom line is that road funds have all but dried up while the pavement crisscrossing this 273-mile wide state continues to wear and tear.

Ideally, Todd said, lawmakers would get a “backbone” and increase the state’s 16-cents a gallon gas tax, but there has been little appetite in the Statehouse to increase the price at the pump.

“I think with the state of our national economy and what’s going on with oil prices, we need to look at other options besides raising taxes,” said Greg Foster, spokesman for House Speaker Bobby Harrell.

Currently, only two tollways exist in South Carolina, one on the bridge overstretching Hilton Head Island and another in Greenville. No interstate highways in the state have tolls, and adding them requires the approval of the Federal Highway Administration.

The S.C. Department of Transportation, in a joint application with Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and, later, Florida, pitched to the feds its Interstate 95 “Corridor of the Future” proposal in October 2006. This multi-faceted pilot program would, among other things, open the door to tolling I-95.

Secretary of Transportation Buck Limehouse could not be reached but has said that he would only support tolling on new lanes, not existing lanes.

That leaves the option of implementing high-occupancy toll lanes in which lone drivers pay a fee to access lanes traditionally set aside for carpoolers.

The tolls would be used to upgrade I-95, but the application was written in such a way that the money also could be used for road construction within a 50 miles radius of the interestate.

That would allow the fees to go toward upgrade projects on certain sections of I-26 and I-20, the S.C. DOT said, as well as the proposed I-73 that would run from Michigan to Myrtle Beach.

It could also be used to build supporting arterial roads, such as the proposed port access road, slated to cost upward of $300 million, which would serve the S.C. State Ports Authority’s new terminal on the old Charleston Naval Base.

At least one local official would even like to see toll roads used for state highway construction. Larry Hargett, chairman of the Dorchester County Council, said he would like to establish a user-fee to extend the Glenn McConnell Parkway, which currently ends at the intersection of Bees Ferry Road in Charleston, up through Dorchester County. He envisions one spur connecting to St. George, near I-95, and the other to Ridgeville, near I-26. A $2 to $3 toll could pay for the road over the course of several decades, he said.

“It would open up a lot of commerce,” Hargett said. “Another big plus would be that it would provide a major evacuation route out of Charleston. Instead of just I-26 you’d have another major four-lane highway to use in times of a hurricane or other disaster.”

Commuters pay $2 — a buck at the front and back end — for access to the “Southern Connector” on I-185 in Greenville that runs between I-385 and I-85, and $1 to access the Cross Island Parkway on Hilton Head Island that connects the northern and southern ends of the shoe-shaped island.

Charlie Clark, vice president of communications for the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce, said the toll bridge, which opened in the late 1990s, has helped to alleviate congestion in southern Beaufort County.

“We have not heard complaints from the 2.5 million visitors that come each year, and residents as well have benefited from it,” she said. “One toll is relative for a visitor coming from Chicago, New York or New Jersey.”

Still, both tollways are struggling financially. The state will increase the toll to access the Cross Island Parkway to $1.25 starting March 31 (Locals with a transponder pay half the cost). That is expected to make ends meet.

The Connector 2000 Association that owns the Greenville toll operation owes the S.C. DOT more than $5 million in maintenance and license fees as part of its public-private partnership agreement with the state, DOT spokesman Pete Poore said. Because debt obligations must be met first, the organization can’t make those payments.

Left unchecked, ailing roads can be deadly. The nation was reminded on Aug. 1 when a bridge on Interstate 35W collapsed in Minneapolis, killing 13 people and injuring 145 others.

In South Carolina, I-95 is the leading route for fatalities, claiming 128 lives between 2000 and 2005.

In his recent State of the State address, Gov. Mark Sanford talked about the need to thoroughly examine the way the state builds road, including the possibility of leveraging private capital. A complete infrastructure proposal is coming, and the governor is not opposed to considering tolling in the funding mix, but he would need more specific details, said his spokesman, Joel Sawyer.

Both Harrell and Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, have introduced legislation to dedicate the 5% sales tax on new vehicle purchases to road improvements.

“It’s a good start,” Foster said. “This makes road funding a priority.”

Some lawmakers support increasing the gas tax, though not likely in enough numbers to make it happen.

“The more you drive, the more you pay. It’s the fairest tax there is,” said Sen. John Land, D-Manning. “I think we’ve put it off long enough.”

Also on the table is the option of replacing the flat 16-cent tax with a percentage of the pump price. Supporters see it as a means to keep up with inflation, and hope to bill it as a tax swap as opposed to an increase, said Mary Graham, senior vice president of public policy for the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Still, anything that raises the price of gas will be a hard sell in the Statehouse.

“With the cost of gasoline, politically, I just don’t think we can do it,” said Sen. Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney.

Molly Parker is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her directly at mparker@scbiznews.com. Reporter Scott Miller contributed to this report.