S.C. road-repair agency to get $40 million
The cash-strapped S.C. Department of Transportation will have an additional $40 million to spend money, the road-repair agency said this week.
That money previously had been earmarked by the federal government for other projects across the state. However, those projects did not use all or part of the money originally set aside for them.
“The project may have cost less than what was set up for it, or the project may have stalled,” said S.C. roads chief Christy Hall.
In December of last year, Congress decided to lift the project-specific restrictions on the Washington funding to allow states to re-purpose some of the money, according to the S.C. road-repair agency.
The money must be spent on a project within a 50-mile radius of the original earmarked project. However, the money cannot be spent on daily maintenance, Hall said.
The state roads agency and federal government recently completed a detailed financial analysis that determined about $32 million will be available to spend along with about $7 million in additional federal matching money.
Hall expects more details on how the money will be spent in the coming month.
Cassie Cope: 803-771-8657, @cassielcope
Broken segment of Bluff Road re-opened
A portion of Bluff Road in Gadsden that had been closed for six months since October’s flooding reopened Friday.
The road was closed when two culverts washed away under it. The culvert was replaced with a 100-foot-long, flat-slab bridge. The project cost about $1.5 million, according to the state Transportation Department.
Richland County was hit hardest by October’s historic flooding. At the peak, 133 road and bridge closures in the county were closed, almost twice as many as Sumter, the county hit the second hardest.
In Richland County, 17 state-maintained roads remain closed, including three bridges on Bluff Road that were closed last week because of the flood’s aftermath. That total includes 11 roads atop dams that were broken or washed away.
This story was originally published April 22, 2016 at 5:44 PM with the headline "S.C. road-repair agency to get $40 million."