No more
To the editor:
Thank you for your article. You are right – gun deaths won’t change until enough of us stand up and say ‘No More’.
— Monica Rockwell, Anderson, S.C.
Find out the real number on transportation funding
To the editor:
Thanks to you and Bill [Davis] for covering the transportation funding issue. I would respectfully suggest that you look more carefully at the underlying data instead of adopting the DOT’s inflated projection for “bringing state roads up to a good standard.”
The DOT figure, an additional $1.3 or $1.4 billion dollars a year over 30 years, is the sum total of every project conceived in every county in the state, including shameless political boondoggles like I-73 and S.C. Highway 51 to Pamplico. The problem is that no one knows what the [real] number is. DOT has not provided an adequate breakdown of the maintenance and repair versus new capacity versus boondoggles.
That should be the first requirement for giving them an additional dollar of tax revenue. The second is that they all, including the State Transportation Infrastructure Bank, submit to a rigorous prioritization of all projects, including new construction. New construction is not included under Act 114.
Finally, they need to change the model to one of fixing the existing system first. And they need to pay attention to modes other than highways. Transit, bicycle, pedestrian and land-use measures are a joke or nonexistent in South Carolina.
Unless the media, including Statehouse Report, take the time to understand the underlying figures, we will continue to waste billions of public dollars on projects that are unnecessary or damaging, at the expense of repairing and maintaining our existing highway system.
— Dana Beach, Charleston, S.C.
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