Malfunction Junction fix is part of Senate roads plan

Malfunction Junction would be fixed under a road-spending plan that the Senate’s budget-writing panel approved Wednesday.

The plan would provide roughly $4 billion for road projects over the next 10 years. Nearly 400 bridges would be replaced, and Malfunction Junction — the state Transportation Department’s No. 1 priority since 2008 — would be fixed.

"This will deliver Malfunction Junction," Transportation Department chief Christy Hall told the Senate Finance Committee.

Malfunction Junction — the poorly designed, congested interchanges around the intersection of Interstates 20 and 26 — has plagued Richland and Lexington motorists.

The added money could not be used to build any new roads, including extending Interstate 526 in Charleston or Interstate 73 to Myrtle Beach.

State Sen. Vincent Sheheen, D-Kershaw, said the Senate proposal is an important step but not a long-term solution to repair and expand the state’s transportation system. A long-term solution could cost up to an added $1.5 billion a year, the Transportation Department has said.

In a statement, Senate President Pro Tempore Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, said the proposal was a first step, adding it was would boost South Carolina’s economy.

“We don’t want companies sidestepping South Carolina because of our roads,” he said. “At the end of the day, mobility means money for our economy.”

Only two senators — Kevin Bryant, R-Anderson, and Shane Martin, R-Spartanburg, members of the Senate’s anti-tax William Wallace Caucus — voted against the proposal, which now heads to the full Senate for consideration.

The money would be raised by diverting revenue from some fees collected by the state Department of Motor Vehicles and the amount of money raised by the state’s $300 cap on vehicle sales taxes. That money then would be bonded through the S.C. Transportation Infrastructure Bank. However, the Transportation Department, not the Infrastructure Bank, would determine where the money is spent.

Many have criticized the Infrastructure Bank, saying it chooses road-repair projects based on politics, not need.

However, Infrastructure Bank opponents lined up Wednesday to say they support the Senate plan.

State Sen. Tom Davis, the Beaufort Republican who has advocated abolishing the bank, said Wednesday the Infrastructure Bank would operate only as the financing vehicle while the Transportation Department would decide which projects are done.

The proposal is a “good step in providing oversight of the Infrastructure Bank by the (Transportation Department) to help ensure our tax dollars go to fixing our roads and not building new roads that we don’t need,” said Dana Beach, head of the anti-new-road S.C. Coastal Conservation League.

This story was originally published April 20, 2016 at 7:14 PM with the headline "Malfunction Junction fix is part of Senate roads plan."