No, South Carolina won’t use COVID relief money to fix potholes. Here’s why
South Carolina won’t use federal COVID-19 relief to fix potholes or other serious maintenance on state roads.
Why? State transportation officials say they’ve already got millions of dollars generated by South Carolina’s gas tax increase to cover maintenance costs leaving federal aid to pay for major interstate projects.
It goes back to when lawmakers passed a law in 2017 to raise the state’s gas tax, a phased-in tax of 12 cents per gallon for six years. The last 2-cent increase will show up at the pump in July when the gas tax goes up to 28 cents from 26 cents per gallon.
The gas tax generates about $910 million a year, of which $770 million goes to the South Carolina Department of Transportation.
About half of that $770 million pays for deferred maintenance, paving roads in disrepair, bridge and other safety projects and some interstate work, said Transportation Secretary Christy Hall.
“The roads bill back in 2017 set us down a path of getting to a state of good repair,” Hall said.
The roads bill didn’t focus on widening roads to deal with population growth and congestion issues, but to pay for fixing potholes, with additional federal money covering road widening.
The state House and Senate chambers have separately passed bills on how they want the state to spend more than $1.7 billion from the federal American Rescue Plan Act.
Both bills include giving $453 million in federal COVID-19 aid to the South Carolina Department of Transportation. That money would go toward widening Interstate 26 between Columbia and Charleston, which is separate from the Malfunction Junction project, and widening the first 33 miles of Interstate 95 north of Georgia coming into the state.
Hall said the transportation department is slated to get an additional $250 million in annual money for five years through the federal infrastructure bill, which will help pay for more work, including:
▪ $69 million, on bridges
▪ $47 million, for paving work
▪ $21 million, for safety work
▪ $15 million, for drainage work
This story was originally published March 21, 2022 at 11:46 AM.
