Rough road ahead: The process of road repair is complicated
When South Carolina motorists are traveling one of the state’s many roads, chances are they are dodging potholes on roads that are barely maintained and overused.
Even as the state’s 2017 gas tax increase is nearly at full implementation, many roads have seen little improvement. The size of the roads and how they have been maintained over the years is a reflection of their current conditions.
“South Carolina has the fourth largest state maintained highway system in the nation,” said Christy Hall, the state’s secretary of transportation. “Unfortunately, that road network had been underfunded for at least 30 years, which led to a lot of decay and roads just getting in poor condition.”
Only Texas, North Carolina and Virginia have more state-maintained roads.
But the process of applying gas tax funds is complicated and takes months, if not years, to reap the benefits of your car’s last fill up.
“The gas tax increase that was passed, which you know will be fully phased in next year, will get us to a state of good repair over a period of time,” Hall said. “It’s not going to happen overnight.”
Hall said SCDOT has more than doubled its paving program over the last few years, including releasing a $642 million paving program.
While the millions of dollars pouring into the program might sound like enough to cover repairing every road in the state, often it is just a drop in the bucket.
For example, the cost of asphalt to resurface 0.24 miles of Long Street in Greenwood cost $23,478 with an $87.85 cost per ton for 267.25 tons of asphalt, Tara Alexander from Satterfield Construction estimates.
Alexander said costs vary by project and depend specifically on what is needed to fix the road.
Road ownership, gas tax funds allocationAnother factor – and sometimes a perception issue – for repairing roads is who is actually responsible for which roads. Property owners might notice a pothole in front of their house or on a road they frequent but many are unaware of who owns the road.
For example, Seaboard Avenue in Greenwood is owned by the state, not the city or county, and is part of more than 60,000 public road miles. SCDOT maintains more than 41,000 miles of those roads, according to its website.
The process of allocating money from the gas tax – also referred to as “C” Funds – is a yearlong process that involves a committee and a lot of engineers. Each county has transportation committee made up of members appointed by the county’s legislative delegation.
Greenwood County’s Transportation Committee – or CTC – will receive requests for funding from cities, towns, the county and SCDOT. Committee members will allocate their available funds as they see fit, but there are some stipulations.
The “C” Fund law requires the CTC to spend at least 27.3% of its allocation on the state’s system before promising it for other projects. This year’s state allotment was $621,000. Leon Fulmer, SCDOT’s Greenwood resident maintenance engineer, submitted a list of state maintained roads that totaled more than $10 million. CTC’s allocation for that list was a little more than 6%.
Roads such as Rock House Road, a state-maintained road in Greenwood County, are unlikely to see much attention as the state works to fix roads with more traffic.
Greenwood County CTC Chairperson Calhoun Mays provided an overview of the process at the group’s April meeting.
“What we do is once we get state gas tax accumulated during the year, this time of the year, we ask all of the various agencies which could be Greenwood County, city, Ninety Six, Ware Shoals, Hodges, just any areas in the county that are looking to participate are welcome to make a request of us,” Mays said.
Mays said the committee asks for each entity to make a wish list for all of its projects.
“The county has quite a long list here,” Mays joked. “They would take every bit of the money we have.”
He said the committee likes to see the wish list ranked by highest priority.
“We rely on them to give us that priority of what they are looking for,” Mays said.
Mays said at the committee’s next meeting this summer it would discuss allocating available money to the projects.
City of Greenwood and Greenwood County will be fixing a number of roads this time around. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, both entities were not able to bid their projects from the previous year. Now, they will bid projects from both years all at once in hopes of getting an overall better deal.
Greenwood City Manager Julie Wilkie said bids will likely go out this fall for city roads.
This year, the committee allocated $372,500 to the City of Greenwood and $371,500 to Greenwood County.
To determine which roads need the most attention, streets are graded on their condition by the public works department. While no official ranking system is used, Greenwood County Public Works Director Robert Russian said the county looks at which roads have needed the most patching, how much traffic travels on the road and the overall condition of the road as perceived by road workers.
In addition to increased use, Hall said other issues contribute to dilapidated roads.
“The issue that has not been solved for our state is how to deal with the economic development needs and road widening projects specifically,” Hall said. “That’s something that we still need to work on.”
One of the projects – part of the 2016 Capital Project Sales Tax initiative – will widen Highway 246 from its intersection at Highway 221 to Emerald Road. Voters approved the nearly $12 million project as one of 27 total projects to be funded by the penny sales tax. This project, while funded by Greenwood County tax collections, will improve a state-maintained road.
Pavement metric data provided by SCDOT shows that 50%, or 107 miles, of Greenwood County’s primary roads and nearly 33%, or 170 miles, of secondary roads are in poor condition. The metrics also show that nearly 47%, or 243 miles, of the county’s secondary roads are in fair condition, which over time and increased use could move them into poor condition.
The waiting process for a long overdue road resurfacing can be frustrating for many people, including those who have a role in the process.
“It is disappointing that it just takes so long to see a project come to fruition,” Mays said. “You might have the money today, but it may be a year or maybe two years to get down the road before it’s actually done.”
However, Mays praised the process as it allows decisions to be made closer to home.
Outside of the CTC funded projects, SCDOT has pavement improvement project that, for 2021-22, will add nearly 1,000 miles of paving projects.
For Greenwood County, S.C. 702 will see a road reconstruction project that will span from the intersection of Highway 246 to Highway 34, giving the nine-plus mile stretch a new roadway. Another major stretch of road in the county that will be receiving some much-needed attention from the state is Deadfall Road, which will be reconstructed in a 3.5-mile stretch from Highway 25 to Northside Drive, near the county airport.
SCDOT has also targeted for rehabilitation a section of Grace Street, from Cothran Avenue to Reynolds Avenue.
Contact staff writer James Hicks at jhicks@indexjournal.com or on Twitter @jameshicks3.
Originally Published by Index-Journal on:Jul 31, 2021
By JAMES HICKS | jhicks@indexjournal.com