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Timing is right for Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan
By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer
The timing couldn’t be better. A document that originated in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 has become the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program just months after an upheaval in the S.C. Department of Transportation that ousted its director.
The improvement program for fiscal years 2007, 2008 and 2009 will deal with structuring and governance of the SCDOT, said Tee Hooper Jr., who serves as chairman of the SCDOT and who spoke at the recent annual conference of the S.C. Economic Developers’ Association earlier this month about some of the challenges facing the department.
“The DOT as a whole has gotten a black eye over these leadership issues, which were about the chairman and the commission and were not an employee issue,” he said. “The lack of structure caused a lot of problems.”
The SCDOT, with a $1.2 billion budget and 4,800 employees, holds the primary responsibility for transportation investment in South Carolina. SCDOT pursues activities that enhance the state’s transportation network, and, in dollar terms, the primary activity of SCDOT is the construction and maintenance of the state’s highway system.
The SCDOT also has been mired in controversy for more than a year with allegations of operational mismanagement.
“As a result of some things I questioned, we had a legislative audit,” Hooper said. “There were problems with leadership and operations, but if you fix the leadership issues, you fix the operational issues.”
Hooper said among the problems was management of the money coming from the State Infrastructure Bank.
“We’re able to take advantage of matching federal dollars, but we have to put the money up first and get reimbursed,” he said. “That wasn’t happening properly and that’s what cost Betty Mabry her job.”
Besides the money issues, the basic structure of the system was flawed, Hooper said.
“We had silos of reporting, and we haven’t had any long-term strategic planning,” he said. “On a scale of 1 to 10, we’re at 1 or 2. We’ve been reacting to who had the strongest voice.”
Hooper suggested changes include having metropolitan planning regions work cooperatively and increased multi-modal planning.
“In some situations there is no solution in terms of widening roads,” he said. “And there are a lot of challenges with economic factors with rural areas. But there are some criteria for ranking and quantifying the needs.”
The SAFETEA bill, upon which the STIC is based, totaled more than $244.1 billion, making it the largest surface transportation investment in the country’s history.
Along with the goals defined in previous highway bills, it identified objectives that need to be addressed during the next five years. Goals included in the bill are to: improve safety, reduce traffic congestion, improve efficiency in freight movement, increase intermodal connectivity, protect the environment, address future challenges and promote more efficient and effective federal surface transportation programs.
Of the three major road projects on the SCDOT’s agenda, two are in the Lowcountry. Along with Interstate 73, which runs through a rural area near Myrtle Beach, the projects include the port access road and the Mark Clark extension running across Johns Island.
“The port access road is a $300-million, 1-mile piece that connects to I-26, and it affects statewide economic development,” Hooper said. “Unfortunately, it’s already at a standstill, and it could end up costing $300, $400, even $500 million.”
The Interstate 526 extension through Johns Island, with a $420 million price tag, is more difficult to factor in terms of economic development due to the rural landscape.
“We need to bring in more economic developers to weigh in on some of these projects,” he said.
Of the SCDOT’s $1.2 billion budget, Hooper said 20% of that is bond debt.
“We’ve leveraged our future somewhat in past years, so we need to press for more dollars on maintenance and balance it with new road projects.”
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