Gavin> Welcome to a This Week in South Carolina Special report.

I'm Gavin Jackson here at Carolina Crossroads in Columbia, The site of the state's largest transportation infrastructure project to date.

It's made possible in part by the new gas tax that was increased by the state legislature back in 2017, raising the gas tax by $0.12 a gallon.

That's generated billions of dollars of extra revenue for the State Department of Transportation, putting $6 billion worth of work under contract in the state.

I spoke with the new SC DOT Secretary Justin Powell about how the agency is working to meet this moment as the state tries to keep pace with massive population growth and economic development.

There have been miles and miles of roadways paved across the state, major interstate widenings and improvements.

Hundreds of bridge rehabilitations and replacements, as well as safety measures to reduce deaths on the deadliest roads in the nation.

I started our conversation by asking Secretary Powell just how consequential this moment is for our state.

Secretary Powell> I think we're where we're headed as a state right now is you got to think about where we were ten years ago.

So about ten years ago, we had about billion dollars worth of construction contracts happening at the state at any one point in time, thanks to the investments from the General Assembly back in 2016, 2017, particularly 2017 Roads Bill, we've seen just a dramatic increase in the amount of work we're able to do across South Carolina.

So, right now we just crossed the line that we have over $6 billion in current construction going on across South Carolina, just on projects like the one you see behind us.

Gavin> So we're talking about $6 billion worth of construction.

That's huge.

Obviously, we're talking about "Malfunction Junction" right here.

We'll talk about interstates and big projects in a second.

But this project itself is $1.7 billion.

Secretary Powell> Yeah, it's just under $2 billion.

The phase you're looking at here is about $200 million just on the contract for this one, which is to rebuild it.

But we've got interstate projects going in every corner of South Carolina right now, but we've got bridge projects, paving projects, just a tremendous amount of road work in all 46 counties.

Gavin> So we talk about that $6 billion in a contract right now.

We talk about getting the gas tax to where it is right now around 27, 28, 29 Secretary Powell> To 28.75 cents Gavin> So at that level, still, that was a big stretch just to get that extra $0.12.

How much more money does the agency need to really keep up with what is going on with growth in the state?

Secretary Powell> Sure.

So I think one of the challenges we're confronting is the state that...gas tax increase and that let us implement our ten year plan, which really focused on four key areas interstates, pavements, bridges and on safety.

That was really a system recovery plan.

So it was because we had 30 years without any real funding coming into the agency.

We're really just in that recovery stage where where we were to get the system in better shape.

You know, South Carolina now is the fastest growing state in the country.

Just a tremendous amount of growth, a lot of it attributable to the investments we've been making in infrastructure, not just on roads, but in the port, water, sewer, broadband all across South Carolina.

So if we're going to keep up with the momentum we've seen in South Carolina, we really do need to start planning ahead for how we deal with congestion, how we deal with growth, particularly in both sides of urban South Carolina, as well as rural South Carolina.

Gavin> So at this point, enough money to keep up.

At this point, do you have enough to keep up with?

Secretary Powell>So I think you know, where we are right now is I think we're well positioned on our payment program.

I think we're making some real strides on safety, an area that is going to be an emphasis for me in my tenure and we'll continue the discussion with the General Assembly is funding for bridges.

So we've got 8400 bridges across South Carolina, about 2400 of them are 60 years or older.

And we designed most of our bridges to last at least 60, but usually 75 years on that.

So we've just got a huge inventory of aging bridges that we've got to tackle.

And so we've made an ask to the General Assembly for additional bridge funding over the next several years so that we can start chipping at that backlog and making a real meaningful impact on our bridges.

Gavin> So just when we talk about interstates and bridges and safety and all those different investments that are underway in the state right now, are these projects on time?

Are they in line with the ten year plan?

Are we ahead of the ten year plan at this point?

Obviously, year seven.

Secretary Powell> Sure.

So, yeah, the ten year plan came out of the 2017 Roads Bill, which was an increase in the gas tax, but it also added sales taxes into our revenues, other DMV fees into those to what were coming in this department.

But we took a chance to not just look at how, you know, increasing our budget by 1% or 2% but to really say what are the outcomes we're going to get as a state.

And so we basically set out four major key goals.

One is on railroad safety.

So we have the unfortunate distinction of having the nation's worst railroad fatality rate.

We want to try to tackle that.

We can't fix speeding.

We can't fix drunk driving, but we can engineer solutions that can keep people in their lane if they get out of the lane correct, without hitting an object.

So we've targeted a thousand miles.

We've already gotten a thousand miles under contract on that.

Bridges, we started off with a goal of 465 bridges.

We've increased that goal to 500 bridges.

We've got seven years in and we've got 350 bridges under construction.

So on track there.

Pavements, we...know we've got a big backlog on that, but we have the fourth largest state highway system in the country, 41,000 miles long.

We've gotten over 8000 miles pavement work started in the past seven years just to start recovering the system.

And then on our interstates, we've actually grown that program because of investments that we've gotten from the General Assembly, and they've gotten over 100 miles of interstate projects happening all across South Carolina.

Gavin> So you're talking about 8000 miles of pavement, 360 some bridges, 100 miles of interstate.

When we talk about it, you're also talking about rural roads and the safety out there.

What about when it comes to the next ten years?

We're talking about year seven of this first ten year plan.

How do you guys determine where to put money, where to invest, what to fix next?

Secretary Powell> So, you know, that whole exercise that we did with the ten year plan was really to focus on what kind of outcomes we get, what kind of returns we're going to do.

One of the things we've started right now is we're starting the next ten year plan.

So, as we're wrapping up the current ten year plan, we're working now on what that plan is going to look like.

We've actually started that process and it's called the Momentum 2050 plan that we have going on right now.

We started this public survey.

Encourage residents to participate in that survey.

You can find it at MovingSouthCarolinaForward.com But I think we're going to look at a lot of trends affecting South Carolina.

The growth of the Port of Charleston is going to mean a lot of more containers, more freight coming through South Carolina.

We've got to deal with continuing the recovery of our system.

We've got to keep repaving roads.

We've got to keep rehabilitating bridges, maintenance, our first priority, We've got to deal with growth.

And that's not just dealing with Charleston and Myrtle Beach and Greenville and the exponential rates of growth they've been seeing.

But we've also got to make sure we can connect rural South Carolina to the global economy.

And then for, the world's changing, technology is changing.

We're seeing people adopt electric cars.

Regardless of how you feel about electric cars, they're already changing our business.

And so we've got to be able how when you...get paid through the gas tax.

Gavin> Yeah.

How do you continue to fund transportation?

Keep up the momentum we've had.

But we also, you know, electric cars are different than rail cars.

They're heavier.

They have a lower center of gravity, which means we've got to rethink how we do maintenance and safety as well.

So those are the big trends and challenges that we've got to look at that we're going to incorporate into that point.

Gavin> And when we talk about pavements, that's one of your biggest areas of investment.

Is that because obviously it's been neglected for so long, but also something that people really see every day more or less.

I mean, there's no part of the state that's not being repaved to some extent.

Secretary Powell> Yeah.

So we... we put out just recently with our commission another 700 miles of paving projects across South Carolina.

So they just grooved that, you know, when you talk about the sheer size of our system, 41,000 miles long, you've got to focus on just your core maintenance responsibilities going on.

And so we have the fourth largest system in the country.

Only Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia have.

And those are all much bigger states than South Carolina.

Little old South Carolina has got a huge system.

So that maintenance is just something we've got to do.

And and that's really where we have focused almost all those dollars that we've gotten from the 2017 Roads Bill.

Gavin> Let's talk about interstates.

We're right here at I-26, I-20 big interchange "Malfunction Junction".

which you guys are renaming "Carolina Crossroads" obviously because you are improving this and you guys broke ground I guess, three years ago on this.

So it's fascinating to see how much has already been done.

But we're talking about Interstate 26, which spans the entire state from the upstate, down to the Midlands to the Low Country.

And but a lot of the work is happening here in the Midlands, down to Low Country when it comes to expansion of the interstate.

Walk us through what's going on with the system right now, especially, for folks maybe who are driving around this area.

They know things have been, two lanes for a while up here, but it's about to be multiple lanes coming into Columbia.

Then obviously going down to the Low Country It will be three lanes, both directions.

What's the progress like on that and how long is that going to take to be built out?

Secretary Powell> Sure.

So I think, we've got, as I said, interstate projects and happening in basically every corner of South Carolina right now, a big project going on in Cherokee and Spartanburg County, to widen I-85.

So basically you can go from Anderson to the North Carolina line in six lanes.

Hoping to wrap that up by the end of the year.

We've got some major projects happening here in Columbia, widening of I-26 between Little Mountain and Irmo and then, you know, "Malfunction Junction" is a key project.

So this is one of one of the three major kind of pinch points that we've defined in the state.

385, 85 in Greenville, which has been known for a few years this interchange and then 26, 526 down in the Charleston area.

But this is about a $2 billion project.

We've broken up into two several phases.

So you'll see those phases right now.

So we've gotten the first two under construction right now.

This one is rebuilding the Colonial Life interchange, improving the access.

If you coming from 26 westbound want to head eastbound onto 126.

We're also rebuilding the Broad River road interchange over on kind of the eastern side of the interchange to improve not only that interchange but the...moving from I-20 west to go west on I-26, but kind of you'll see us continue to do a lot of work, going to be clearing the main interchange in the near future.

We're going to start widening.

We've started the procurement on widening I-20 basically coming from Lexington back towards the interchange.

And we're just going to continue to work around each quadrant of the interchange and keep working on until we get to the middle of it.

And then we'll work on the full interchange.

So it's going to be a tremendous amount of work and activity.

It's one of the most exciting projects we've got going on in the state and nationally, really.

I think the other really exciting thing we've got is a rural interstate widening program.

So, I-26 breaks down between Columbia and Charleston with regularity, my parents live in the Charleston area and it's always a challenge getting down to see them.

The volume of freight we've...seen coming out of the Port of Charleston.

So we are working right now to widen that for six lanes off between Columbia and Charleston.

That'll help with hurricane evacuation.

And we've gotten three projects already underway.

So we've got widening coming out of Charleston from 187 to 194.

We just went under contract here in Columbia, coming on the other end from 125 to 136.

And then we're under contract to rebuild the I-26, I-95 interchange, and we'll just continue to work our way down from both ends until we meet up in Orangeburg County to complete the project.

Gavin> Around 2030, right?

Secretary Powell> About 2030 is when we'll have it all under way.

Gavin> And then "Malfunction Junction", Carolina Crossroads will be complete around...?

Is it on time?

Where...?

What are you shooting Secretary Powell> It'll...be for completion.

all done in the early 2030s.

Gavin> Okay.

So then at that point, we're going to be pretty much rocking and rolling in this state when it comes to just moving things faster or better.

Secretary Powell> And then we'll be moving on to the 26, 526 project down in the Charleston area, which will be the largest and most expensive project we've ever tackled as a...state.

Gavin>...when we talk about that and then you also have to look at 95, too.

Right?

That's the next shoe to drop when everyone's talking about coming in from Georgia and how difficult it is just is from those three lanes, to those two lanes.

It slows everything down.

Secretary Powell> Yeah, no.

So 95 and thanks for reminding me about that Gavin> There's so many so.

Secretary Powell> It's so much going on right now.

So we're on track to buy the contract to do the first eight miles coming in from Georgia that will include rebuilding the bridge across the Savannah River from Georgia and going up all the way to Hardeeville, but our plans right now, we have in design basically the whole corridor from the Georgia border up to exit 33, which is point south, where you head off to go to Charleston and make that a six lane facility, as well.

So just a tremendous amount of activity happening across South Carolina and why we're becoming increasingly the attention of the country.

Gavin> So you know, there's always a joke about adding one more lane, we'll fix it.

Right?

Even though we know that's not always the case.

In many ways it's not.

But at what point do we start seeing state, local, federal government starting to throw more money into, you know, connectivity, rapid transit, you know, mass transit?

How do we get to that point?

Because we're going to get to a point where we can't just build our way out of this situation.

Secretary Powell> Yeah.

Now, I mean, there's a... limit to where you do that.

And I would say, particularly in the Charleston area, there's going to be a just not enough geography to just keep adding extra lanes on that.

So that requires us thinking about other tools in the toolbox.

And that can be how do we maximize the flow through of our existing corridors that retiming signals controlling access, improving turn lanes, all those things that we can just push as much traffic through.

But one of the projects we are working on with folks down in Charleston is a is a bus rapid transit system that they're developing.

And we've agreed as kind of the largest public works entity in the state of South Carolina to build it for them.

So, I mean, there's kind of an exciting opportunity coming from that one as well.

Gavin> Let's talk about bridges.

You're just mentioning 8400 bridges are owned by SC DOT.

A lot were built back in the sixties and they're getting past their useful life at this point.

How concerned are you and DOT at this point when it comes to reliability and what could happen to these bridges?

Secretary Powell> So let's talk about how we kind of inspect and review bridges.

So we check every bridge by federal standard, federal requirement every two years.

So there's a bridge inspection on every single bridge in the state.

If there's a safety concern, we'll shut down the bridge.

There's no questions asked about that.

But right now, we've got about 60 to 70 bridges that are closed across South Carolina right now.

We've got another 670 to 680 bridges at any one time that are low posted that a usually not a passenger vehicle, but a truck, fire truck or a school bus may not be able to pass over that.

So that has real impacts >> Yeah.

Secretary Powell> to communities getting around.

We just view that as the tip of the iceberg.

When you talk about the age of our bridges and you talked about you got a number of bridges that are 60 years or older, we've got 2400 right now that are 60 years or older.

If we keep up with our current level of investment as a state, we're going to be at 3900 bridges that are 60 years or older in ten years.

So we've got to tackle this.

I view this as probably the biggest issue confronting the department in the coming years, is that we've got to make sure that we ramp up our investment in bridges across South Carolina so that we can start tackling this issue so we don't have closures, don't have postings that really negatively impact the movement of people and goods across the state.

Gavin> There's no doubt we take bridges across the state for granted and from small spans on country roads to those on major interstates and large spans, such as the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge that spans the Cooper River in Charleston.

Bridges don't make headlines unless something goes wrong, like when the deck bed of the Interstate 20 bridge spanning the Wateree River slipped six inches around last Christmas.

We visited that bridge, which was already slated for replacement and was under contract when that incident closed it for two days in December.

Secretary Powell>...to be honest, this is actually one of our least traveled interstates in South Carolina is I-20.

If we had that same thing happen in front of the BMW plant, on I-85 outside the Port of Charleston, I mean, just think about the economic...impact.

Gavin> Yeah.

Secretary Powell>..so that's why investing in bridges, like we will never let one of our interstate bridges get to a closure low posting because it's just so critical for commerce moving across South Carolina.

Gavin> Yeah, when you see it up close, you realize just how important it is too.

Like you said, you can't just shut it down.

Secretary Powell>You know, a shutdown has major implications.

So obviously when we had the shutdown, we were basically detouring all of westbound I-20, basically through the city of Camden and Lugoff, basically to get people to kind of detour.

So, huge traffic delays.

It required coordination with our traffic folks.

So we had law enforcement out there.

We had our traffic engineers basically managing the signals on that.

And we don't have that luxury like on the Lake Marion Bridge.

It's a 70 mile detour.

So we'd be running folks through Columbia to get around from Orangeburg to Florence from that.

Gavin> Because we take bridges for granted.

It seems like I don't really think of the Wateree Bridge... like, you know, I'm just going to Florence from here and then you're telling me it's $100 million bridge span that you guys are working on and how critical it is.

So I think it just really drives home the fact that what we're talking about.

So but just when we talk about like, you know, the Lake Marion Bridge.

Secretary Powell> Yes.

Gavin> 70 mile detour, if that has an incident, how do you replace that?

How does that get stacked into the list of priorities at this point?

Secretary Powell>We're working on a number of our mega bridges and say this is one of the mega bridges we're working on right now.

We're actually seeking federal grant assistance for the Lake Marion Bridge on that one.

But that's about a $350 million project is to replace those structures.

So we think that that one's critical for the movement of freight.

And people from Florida to Miami, from Miami up to New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, all of those areas.

So we'd be prepared to act if we got the funding on it?

But it's one of those projects, same issue we got on the Pee Dee River Bridge up on I-95 between Florence and Dillon.

Same criticality, the structure that we've got to keep working.

So I mean, it's just projects like this are important, but it's the same thing for a small two lane bridge in the country.

Oftentimes only access for people getting around to their communities.

So it has critical impacts from just getting children to school, fire trucks into scenes, getting goods to markets.

So, just investing in bridges, period, has just got to be so critical because when you...lose one, you feel it.

Gavin> Yeah.

Road conditions have been improving across the state, but bumpy rides and car damage aren't the only issues poor conditions pose to the public.

South Carolina is home to some of the most deadly roads in the country, and such sobering statistics prompted the agency to dedicate $50 million a year on safety improvements in rural and urban areas.

And the results so far have been life changing.

So we're talking about fatalities, road safety, we want to talk about railroad safety, but here we are in the middle of Columbia right now.

Tell us about this project, what you guys are aiming to do with this.

Secretary Powell> Sure.

So, you know, South Carolina has, unfortunately one of the highest road fatality rates in the country, particularly at our railroad fatality rates We have the worst railroad fatality rate in the country.

But we spend about $130 million a year on safety projects across state, and that's both on the rural side, trying to make keep people in their lanes, but also in urban areas like here in Columbia, we're working for improving pedestrian safety out there as well.

This project is the South Main project, so it is a big cooperative effort between us, Richland County, the University of South Carolina, Department of Administration, lots of partners to make this project happen, but it's a significant pedestrian safety project.

High volume of college students moving in and out of here, State house traffic coming along.

So we're actually reducing the number of lanes on this project, adding bike facilities, as well as widening sidewalks to that.

And that's what we're looking for is, and provide those opportunities or projects like these in urban areas where you can protect all users.

So not only are you protecting the driver coming through, you're trying to protect making sure pedestrians are crossing at clear and delineated crosswalks, providing clear and safe areas for bicycle traffic to go through.

So trying to take a look at it from a whole, whole picture from there.

Gavin> Yeah, because you're talking about bike lanes and we also have a lot of bicyclist fatalities too.

So I mean, how do we, how do we do more of this?

Are we going to see folks replicating this model right here downtown Columbia, and other places across the state?

Secretary Powell>So what I would say is what we do is called a road safety audit.

So we go out, we interact with the local government interact with interested parties out there and they really go out there and they walk the corridors, they see where the hazards are and they identify them.

And then we come up with the project from that.

So it's going on right now in here in Columbia on Five Points.

We're doing a series of those projects about to get underway in North Charleston on Ashley Phosphate Road, Dorchester Road.

It's downtown Charleston, as well.

So it's across the state we're doing this.

It's not just an issue in the Columbia or Charleston.

It's a statewide issue.

But we're really trying to identify what works and then put in the proven countermeasures that can protect people, whether you're driving, walking, biking.

Gavin> So let's go from the urban areas to the rural areas, and we're talking about how we have some of the deadliest rural roads in the state in the country, I should say.

What are you all doing?

Are there quick fixes?

Are there more elaborate fixes that need to take place on those farm ...to market roads and those other two lane roads a lot of people are used to driving on?

>> Yeah.

Gavin> What's the process going on there?

Secretary Powell> Right now, one things that we were required to do in the 2017 Roads Bill was to spend $50 million per year on railroad safety.

So as I said, we've got the nation's worst railroad fatality rate.

And when we did, the data analysis on it, what we realized was that on just 5% of our rural roads were 30% of the fatalities were happening.

And so what we've done is we can't always fix speed, we can't fix drunk driving, but we can engineer solutions.

We're adding rumble strips, clearing vegetation, adding wider shoulders so that if a driver starts getting out of their lane, they're alerted, get back into their lane, and if they get out of the lane, they have an opportunity to recover without hitting an object.

And I think the great story on that is that we've seen on the projects that we've the first projects we've done on that we've seen a 20% reduction in fatal serious injury crashes in those corridors.

So I think the proof is in the pudding that the return on investment is there in terms of saving lives.

Gavin> And just because... it's in the news right now, we saw some it's a big tragedy out of the port of Baltimore earlier this year when it came to the Francis Scott Key Bridge being hit by a out of control freighter that resulted in six deaths and that bridge being completely wiped out.

It's back.

That channel is up and running now, but the bridge still needs to be rebuilt.

We had a similar scary situation down the Low Country at the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge that spans the Cooper River, where we also had a freighter that was somewhat out of control.

Walk us through what happened there...and the fears when it comes to those situations and what we have in store, what's already on the books preparedness wise when it comes to what could have happened and how we can mitigate those situations?

Well, I actually happened to be in the Charleston Traffic Management Center when that occurred.

We were doing our annual drill to do Hurricane Lane reversals.

One of the things that I saw happen was everybody did what they were supposed to do.

The pilot showed his training, his all the years of his experience of navigating ships through that channel.

Really did a fantastic job of managing it through the communication with the Port, Coast Guard to local law enforcement.

We shut down the bridge, went from there.

So what I would say is the plan went as it was supposed to.

Unfortunately, the bridge that ship passed over the bridge with no...incident.

I think what's important to note is the Ravenel Bridge was designed with modern container ships in mind.

So underneath the piers of the bridge are basically 150 feet of a rock island.

Basically, boulders the size of cars that are there with kind of ship protection to prevent something like that happening, that happened in Baltimore.

So it is designed for kind of the modern shipping traffic that we see coming through the Port of Charleston.

And so I would feel like we would be in a better situation.

Obviously, you can't design and predict for every contingency, but that bridge was really designed to deal with those type of container ships going under it.

Gavin> And of course, everything went to plan, like you said.

So a real life drill, essentially.

And so and then just the last question when it comes to people will saying, when's my road going to get paved?

When am I going to see improvements in my part of the state?

What's your advice to folks as you are, again, we're just in year seven of this ten year plan now, what do you tell people when they want to know when things are going to happen in their neck of the woods?

Secretary Powell> Well, certainly we encourage folks that we have on our website a project viewer website application.

You can see all the projects that are going on in your area and plan.

You got to recognize that there was a 30 year accumulation of deferred maintenance.

So we've got a backlog we've got to work through.

We've got just tremendous growth happening at the state at the same time.

It won't... We won't be able to solve it all in ten years.

We're going to make... we've made a significant dent in that backlog and we're going to continue to continue that investment level to start continuing to cover our system.

And it's really because of the commitment from the General Assembly to make sure that we could have a modern system and modern funding behind it.

Gavin> Got you.

All right, Justin Powell, thank you very much.

Secretary Powell> Thank you Gavin.

Appreciate it.

Gavin> South Carolina's infrastructure story is ongoing and one that we'll be telling throughout the years to come, including on the South Carolina Lede.

That's a podcast that I host on Tuesdays and Saturdays that you can find on SouthCarolinaPublicRadio.org or wherever you find podcasts.

For South Carolina ETV, I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well South Carolina.

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