Charleston Currents

Post Tagged with: "roads"

FOCUS: Justify spending $1.1 billion on Interstate 526 widening

By Fred Palm, contributing editor | The S.C. Department of Transportation (SCDOT) proposes to widen Interstate 526 and redo the Interstate 26 intersection. This will be a massive redo of a major travel vector. The cost: at least $1.1 billion. The I-526 Corridor Analysis shows minor shifts in congestion or capacity improvement. The SCDOT website is open to the end of January for our comments.

SCDOT builds highways and wants us to focus on the four alternative highway routes. We are putting down our future regional investments and growth. Highway investment drives other future investments. Businesses use interstate distribution of their goods that grows our economy. Build it and they will come or follow. In a similar vein, railroad spines drove our country’s western development.

Transportation, flooding and economic factors drive the following decisions: Where homes get put; where business expands; and how long the commute follows. These are supporting, opposing, or conflicting factors.

* CLICK into the story to find how too take part in the SCDOT virtual public meeting and share your voice.

by Fred Palm · 01/06/2020 · 2 comments · Common Good, Focus, Views

FOCUS, Palm: Let’s be smarter about dealing with traffic woes

By Fred Palm, contributing editor | The S.C. Department of Transportation (SCDOT) wants to widen Interstate 526 to six lanes in Charleston and Berkeley counties recognizing that congestion is regional and the correct response is more highway.

Maybe.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is making its way into the commercial, medical and educational spheres. Traffic management involves dynamic conditions involving both complex and repetitive decisions to control traffic signals to get us through an intersection.

Congestion detection and prediction is a math problem that we can do — and so can trained machines. In fact, the Federal Highway Administration advocates more use of these “Adaptive Traffic Management Systems.”

by Fred Palm · 12/16/2019 · Comments are Disabled · Common Good, Views

BRACK: A pat on the back for Grooms, Sheheen for practical roads bill

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Larry Grooms and Vincent Sheheen pored over spreadsheets for weeks looking for a solution that hornswoggled their state Senate colleagues for three years: A practical way to raise the state’s gas tax to fix roads.

By Wednesday, an idea by Republican Grooms – allowing state drivers to get rebates of their portion of the 12-cents-per-gallon hike in the gas user fee – blended with tax cut priorities by Sheheen, a Democrat, to cobble together a piece of winning legislation. While Sheheen brought a solid bloc of the minority Democrats to the table, Senate President Pro Tem Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, and Grooms delivered a group of moderate Republicans who stuck together, vote after vote, to thwart filibuster threats and get the bill passed.

by Andy Brack · 04/30/2017 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: We’ve all got the “Pothole Blues”

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Sometimes the only way to make a point and make sure it gets through is through humor.

As the state Senate stumbles drunkenly to find a way to figure out a way to fix state roads and bridges, former gubernatorial candidate Tom Ervin of Greenville turned to song to make his point.

He wrote – and had recorded – an aptly-named song, “Pothole Blues,” as first reported Sunday by our sister publication, Statehouse Report.

He says he’s gotten so frustrated by the continued “lack of vision and failed leadership” by state senators and Gov. Henry McMaster in funding the billions of dollars of needs for state road and bridge repairs” that he had to do something.

by Andy Brack · 04/24/2017 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

10/12, full issue: Helping flood victims, not shortchanging S.C.

In the Oct. 12, 2015, issue of Charleston Currents:
FOCUS, Tim Ervolina: Ways to help victims of the Great Flood of 2015
BRACK: Stop shortchanging South Carolina
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Charleston Green Commercial
REAL ESTATE, Doug Holmes: Traditional sellers face competition
GOOD NEWS: Big check to chase away cancer, more
FEEDBACK: Send us your letters
CALENDAR, Oct. 12+: A musical, block party and Greek Fest
REVIEW: Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things
MYSTERY: Ring our bell on this one
S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIA: Granby, S.C.

by Charleston Currents · 10/12/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Full issue

Photo courtesy of Nelson Aerial Productions.

BRACK: Stop shortchanging South Carolina

By Andy Brack | South Carolinians have to get over the cheapskate model of democracy. To do otherwise is to continue to fail our future.

Billions of dollars of underinvestment in roads, bridges and health care over recent years leaves the state at the mercy of disasters of one sort or another.

Just witness the 11 trillion gallons of rain over the last week that flooded rivers, burst dams, destroyed homes, upended lives and killed at least 17 people.

by Andy Brack · 10/12/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

Letters: Different tax idea; roads, MLK

“As long as everybody is using it, legalizing and taxing it would provide much-needed funds for road repairs.”

by Charleston Currents · 01/26/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Feedback

Brack: 7th cent in sales tax would cripple S.C.’s growth

JAN. 19, 2015 | If a bill being pushed to add a seventh penny of state sales tax to fix roads ends up making it through the legislature, the state would suffer mightily.

Simply put, it’s a dumb idea. Not only would it make the Palmetto State less competitive, but it would catapult South Carolina into having the highest sales tax rate in the Southeast and the second highest in the nation! Imagine an economic recruiter trying to explain that to a prospect who wants to locate here.

by Andy Brack · 01/21/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views