Traffic flows up and down Interstate 77 as the Columbia, S.C., skyline is seen in the distance on Wednesday, May 18, 2022. (File/Travis Bell/STATEHOUSE CAROLINA/Special to the SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — South Carolina has a new roapmap for the state’s highway system.
The Momentum 2050 plan, set for approval Thursday by the Department of Transportation’s governing board, reflects how South Carolina’s booming population is newly driving roadway needs.
The agency is on target to meet or exceed all of the 10-year goals it set after the Legislature passed the 2017 road-funding law that raised gas taxes and other fees, according to DOT data.
Drivers may find that hard to believe. If there’s one thing South Carolinians still universally complain about, it’s their roadways.
“My phone has burned up a lot,” Rep. Heather Crawford, R-Socastee, told DOT Secretary Justin Powell at a House Ways and Means budget hearing in January.
Despite all the additional money, “they’re not seeing it or feeling the relief,” said the chairwoman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee writing the DOT budget.
Powell laid out the numbers, which include $6.5 billion worth of construction currently underway across all 46 counties.
A 30-year hole
But he also understood drivers’ sentiment. A major part of the perception problem, he reminded the panel, is just how badly the states’ roadways had gotten.
“We’re digging out of a hole that was 30 years old, but I think we’ve made good progress,” said Powell, who took the agency’s helm last year after his mentor, DOT Secretary Christy Hall, retired.
What he didn’t say is that the Legislature played a big role in digging that hole. (I can fill in that history as someone who covered the entire debate.)
The short version: The 2017 law was 10 years in the making, as enough Republicans eventually agreed the state’s 1987 gas tax could not fund needs.
Factor in inflation driving up construction prices and more-fuel-efficient vehicles requiring fewer fill-ups, and that 16.75 cents per gallon actually paid for exceedingly less as the years rolled on. And the longer roads went without maintenance, the more extensive — and expensive — each repair job became.
It certainly doesn’t help that South Carolina has the nation’s fourth-largest state-maintained highway system, at more than 41,000 centerline miles. Compare that to more than 12,000 miles managed by the state of Florida and about 18,000 miles by Georgia.
Former DOT Director Robert St. Onge often told reporters his job was to “manage the decline of the state highway system.”
It was during his tenure that the road-funding debate began, as the DOT released a report showing it needed an additional $1.5 billion annually over 20 years just to bring roads and bridges to good condition.
The 2017 law was a veto-proof compromise that was expected to eventually bring in $630 million additional annually, once the 12-cents-per-gallon increase was fully realized six years later.
It didn’t just increase gas taxes. It also increased the state sales tax cap on vehicles from $300 to $500 and the biennial license registration fee by $16. And it created new fees for hybrid and electric vehicles, out-of-state truckers and drivers moving to South Carolina.
But legislators knew in 2017 the total revenue didn’t come close to what the DOT said it needed.
Two years later, state senators launched a committee to figure out how to fund interstate widening, saying congestion was “dangerously close” to driving business away. They never came up with a specific proposal.
But the Legislature did approve an additional $900 million total over the last three years in one-time expenses toward bridge repairs, rural road safety and — when combined with federal COVID aid — interstate widening. And the 2021 federal infrastructure law guaranteed an additional $1.3 billion more over five years, after the state added $120 million to its yearly match.
The House budget plan approved last week would send another $200 million for bridge work in the coming fiscal year.
Growing pains
Congestion is now drivers’ biggest complaint.
“I don’t get as much complaints anymore about potholes,” Powell said. “It’s more, ‘I’m waiting at a traffic light or in congestion.’”
The 10-year plan developed in 2017 was about getting existing roads to good condition. It didn’t forecast South Carolina becoming the nation’s fastest-growing state.
In 2017, the population was at 5 million. In 2024, it was 5.5 million.
And without some major changes, traffic jams will only get worse.
According to the state Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office — which is notoriously conservative in its estimates — South Carolina will grow to 6.2 million by 2040.
Meanwhile, the state’s ports plan to handle four times more shipping containers in 2050 as they did in 2024. And that means a lot more tractor-trailers on South Carolina’s interstates.
“We’re at risk of becoming a victim of our own success,” Powell told the SC Daily Gazette. “We’re now seeing challenges ascribed to Atlanta or Charlotte showing up in South Carolina.”
In an online survey conducted by the DOT between June and September, 63% of respondents said congestion and bottlenecks were their top concern; only 23% cited road conditions as their biggest beef.
Future goals in the Momentum 2050 plan combine the continued need for maintenance, repairs and replacements — what Powell calls “recovery of the system” — with handling lots more vehicles.
It doesn’t specify or put a timeline on any projects. Those are still to be determined.
But it does include dollar figures by category: They tally up to roughly $1 billion more needed annually through 2050, according to the plan.
That represents a 43% hike from current spending.
The report makes no recommendations for how to generate that money.
Powell has, however, suggested that legislators revisit the fees they created in 2017 for hybrids and electric vehicles. A driver of a gas-fueled vehicle pays more than $200 annually through the per-gallon tax. That compares to fees every two years of $60 for hybrids and $120 for electric vehicles.
Those fees are the lowest in the Southeast. North Carolina charges EV owners $180 annually, while Georgia’s fee, which rises with inflation, is at $211. Tennessee’s fee, now at $200, is set to increase to $274 in 2027.
While the percentage of hybrids and EVs registered in South Carolina is still small, representing a combined 3.6% of all vehicles, their numbers are steadily rising, Powell said. He considers it a matter of fairness for those vehicles to contribute more toward the roads they’re using.
But, as he said, that’s a policy decision for the Legislature.
And whether those fees become part of a larger road-funding package remains to be seen.
As Rep. Steven Long pointed out in that Ways and Means budget hearing, traffic has become a nightmare even in once-rural areas.
“Roads are the No. 1 concern of my constituents,” and they don’t feel like their gas taxes are helping them, the Inman Republican told Powell.
In his Spartanburg County district, he said, the peach orchards have turned into housing developments and shopping centers.
“It’s disappointing to see what’s happened in the community I love,” he said. “It’s a pain just to get to work in the morning. It’s aggravating and disappointing.
“What can we do to accelerate statewide repairs?”
The DOT is taking public comments on the Momentum 2050 plan through April 19. People can comment through an online form or email SCDOTpubliccomment@scdot.org.