Speight: Legislature should take cue from Lexington on roads

This past session, the General Assembly failed to develop a politically acceptable funding and reorganization plan for the state’s roads network. As leaders continue to nurture distrust and public aggravation, the problem gets worse. Without county, state or federal money available to do the work, the town of Lexington hasn’t given up trying to find a way to satisfy both the needs and the public.

According to engineering studies, 120,000 to 130,000 vehicles move though Lexington every day. That’s six times the town’s population. These cars and trucks are taking people to jobs or recreation, service trucks to job sites or cargo to businesses. In most cases, neither the origins nor the destinations are in the town limits. Whether vehicles are en route to Lake Murray, Riverbanks Zoo, shops and restaurants in or beyond Lexington or just to access the interstates, they’re putting a burden on the town’s roads — a burden that grows every year.

Lexington has identified three bottlenecks that clog traffic and create unsafe congestion on major thoroughfares within town limits. The Town Council has developed a plan to upgrade these intersections and to fund those upgrades as equitably as possible: with a 2 percent hospitality tax on prepared foods.

The projects will cost between $13 million and $14 million and take up to four years to complete. The tax is projected to generate $2 million a year initially.

By spreading the cost around to users of the roads and not just to residents, the town avoids — for the 29th year — raising property taxes. Even so, a tax increase of any type is unpopular and subject to suspicion. To help assuage voters’ concerns, at least two council members — Ron Williams and Mayor Pro-Tem Hazel Livingston — are working to put an eight-year limit on the life of the tax.

Still, though helpful, such solutions are minor in the greater context. Much more is needed to fix, maintain, upgrade and modernize South Carolina’s roads. The General Assembly can take a lesson from Lexington and find a way.

This story was originally published August 11, 2015 at 7:28 PM.