Toll roads a tough sell in Palmetto State
Of the two in S.C., one is 'a spectacular financial failure' while the other is moving traffic above expectations
By Diane Knich
Sunday, June 22, 2008
South Carolinians just don't seem to like the idea of having to pay to drive on a road.
The state has only two toll roads. And as Charleston County Council considers building another that cuts across largely rural Johns Island, some people are looking closely at them to see if they're working.
The Coastal Conservation League, which is opposed to building a toll road on Johns Island, says the state's experience with pay-to-drive roads hasn't been good. Officials should be cautious when considering building more toll roads, the group says.
The Cross Island Parkway on Hilton Head Island, the state's first toll road, which opened in early 1998, is clearly the more successful of the two projects. On average, 26,000 cars use the road each day, according to the South Carolina Department of Transportation. That's 8,000 cars more than the original projections estimated for the road's 10-year mark. Financially, however, the project is just getting by, and SCDOT had to raise the toll this year for the first time, increasing it to $1.25 from $1.
The Southern Connector in Greenville, the state's second toll road, which opened in 2001, has failed dramatically to meet traffic and financial projections. The toll road runs along the southern end of Greenville and connects Interstate 85 to Interstate 385. In 2007, the road brought in about $5.4 million. That falls 62 percent short of the amount of money the road was expected to generate, according to the trade publication TOLLROADSnews.
Tim Brett, spokesman for the Southern Connector, said the road, which was built by a public-private partnership called the Connections 2000 Association, is having financial trouble because use has fallen far below projections.
The projections were off likely because the original study included some miscalculations, he said. And, he added, there was an economic slowdown just after the road opened.
Alex Dadok, project manager for the Coastal Conservation League, called the Southern Connector "a spectacular financial failure."
Joe Bunting is chief operating officer of the Kiawah Island Community Association. He said the association's board and the mayor of the town strongly support building a toll road across Johns Island.
The road would bring people across Johns Island to Kiawah Island more quickly, Bunting said. And it would divert traffic from slower-moving roads on Johns Island, making them safer.
The association hasn't carefully reviewed the performance of the state's other toll roads, Bunting said, but he doesn't believe there's much to learn from the financially troubled Southern Connector. Drivers in that area can choose to pay to drive on the toll road or they can drive for free on the interstate. The toll road doesn't offer them much for their money, he said. But on the proposed Johns Island road, drivers would have the choice of driving on the toll road or on "slower-moving neighborhood streets," he said. Bunting believes many drivers would opt to use a toll road across Johns Island.
Kiawah Development Partners, which also supports building the toll road, recommended speaking to Wallace Hawkes, a special projects consultant for URS, a large engineering firm that builds toll roads.
Hawkes said that just like any other business, sometimes toll roads fail to meet financial expectations. "For every Southern Connector there are a lot of success stories out there," he said.
Hawkes said Charleston County considered building a similar road across Johns Island in the mid-1990s. His company bid on the contract but the county didn't go ahead with the project, he said.
Hawkes said that if the county decides to move forward with the Sea Islands Parkway, a consortium of companies, including URS, will likely bid on it. "The Sea Islands project looks like a very good project," he said.
But Dadok said the county should be careful.
Toll roads can't immediately solve traffic problems, he said. Nearly a decade passed between the time Hilton Head's Cross Island Parkway was approved and the time it opened. "It wasn't a quick fix," he said.
