SCDOT wants millions more in the budget for Momentum 2025 vision
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - South Carolina Department of Transportation staff presented to the commission on Thursday morning that the state’s growing population and travel mean budgets are growing budgets.
Deputy Secretary for Planning Leah Quattlebaum’s presentation inside the SCDOT Headquarters Auditorium showed they currently have $2 billion annually toward various categories (interstates, bridges, safety, etc.) but more is needed to meet their Momentum 2025: Moving South Carolina Further goals.
For interstate programs alone, they currently have $500 million invested, but making the budget $971 million would help.
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Safety budgets are more than $100 million, but she said they need $230 million annually. More than $200 are in bridges, but they need $439 million, and so on.
Right now, there are 111 miles of interstates, more than 390 bridges, and more than 1,140 miles of rural safety projects wanting to be addressed.
With the commissioner’s approval on Thursday morning, the Momentum 2050 plan is now open to the public for comment about what people wish to see change through collaboration.
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Quattlebaum’s presentation showed that 63% of participants in a public survey said their number one concern for daily travel impact is congestion and bottlenecks.
As for urban and rural travel, she said widening projects was a big investment, but they may need to change their operations moving forward to accommodate current growth.
“Issues such as signal retiming and access management projects where we’re improving our existing footprint,” she said.
The SCDOT Government Affairs Representative Ted Creech said it’s been busy since the statehouse started its session in January. Tracking 120 bills through the general assembly, including the state’s budget with millions of dollars on the line that has ed in the house.
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“The Senate is scheduled to vote on its budget package on the week of April 20th. Of course, it will then go back to the house in a conference committee to hopefully have a new budget in place by July 1st,” he said.
Another area of growth they are tracking is port activity in Charleston. Quattlebaum said they moved 3.6 million containers last year but the expectation by 2050 is they will be moving 10 million.
“That’s significant growth which we have to accommodate,” she said.
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