By admin 
When the General Assembly approved more than $350 million worth of lawmaker earmarks, they included about $34 million for transportation projects.
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Much of the $34 million, which will pass through the Department of Transportation, will be for road and bridge projects.
It’s an amount that concerned some lawmakers when the spending package of community investment projects was approved by the General Assembly last month.
The Transportation Department has 27 projects slated to pass through the agency, which also includes work for bus stops, parking lots, and sidewalks.
But much of the chunk is for road work including intersection improvements, road resurfacing, bridge restorations and interchange work.
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said he’s concerned those road and bridge projects could jump ahead of other projects on the SC DOT’s priority list, which is put together with engineering criteria.
It also has the danger of giving lawmakers with more political clout the ability to push for road projects earlier than they would otherwise receive funding. The practice also has the potential of tying up contractors from doing other work.
“There was a process laid out to ensure that road and bridge work were done based on engineering criteria, as opposed to political criteria,” Massey said. “It is a process that I’m sure your constituents can be frustrated with at times, and so can mine. If there’s something that you really want, well, if it doesn’t meet the engineering criteria for your region or for statewide, it may not come as quickly as you’d like.”
A road project can be politically beneficial as roads are used by everyone and the work is visible.
Massey said he’s concerned more and more earmark money could be directed toward specific road projects by lawmakers.
“But there are going to be lots of other places around the state that are going to have those infrastructure needs, too. And if we’re going to start doing this, we’re going to move more to a political power scenario as opposed to an engineering scenario,” Massey said.
The earmark money is in addition to the $189.5 million of one-time money lawmakers set aside to the DOT for bridge work, and $175 million in one-time money budget writers allocated to the county transportation committees.
Many of the projects were locally driven, will be locally managed and not on the SC DOT priority list, said Kelly Moore, the agency’s chief of staff. However, she added the industry has been able to absorb the work and not put a strain on the industry.
Only one of the projects was already on the DOT’s priority list. It was the $3 million for the Bushy Park Road resurfacing in Berkeley County and was sponsored by state Rep. Sylleste Davis, R-Berkeley.
“That was going to happen imminently. So, in our mind, that didn’t push other priorities out of the way. Instead, it made room for us to advance the next project,” Moore said.
Moore, in an email, also said the DOT’s priority list also ranks projects around the state on an annual or biannual basis.
“Not being on a list does not mean that SCDOT does not consider it a valid or necessary project,” Moore wrote. “Based on our reading, several of these projects had already secured funding, in many cases local funding or previous earmark or grant funding.”
State Sen. Russell Ott, D-Calhoun, said traffic counts on roads often play a role in which road and bridge projects get prioritized.
“If you’re in an area that has a terrible road that might not have a ton of traffic, it’s hard to get that attention from DOT,” Ott said.
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It’s in those instances that it’s helpful to have legislators pushing for dollars for local road projects, lawmakers said.
“In local instances, legislators are in a position to hear from constituents in regard to how an existing road may be particularly deficient and a safety hazard, and a lot of times those things don’t bubble up and get taken into account with the statewide formula,” said state Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort.
Among the projects that received state dollars was improvements for Boundary Street in Bluffton. Davis sponsored the project, which received $1 million in the state budget to make improvements on the heavily traveled road with a sidewalk on the western side of the street in Bluffton’s historic district. The total project has a $3.36 million budget, and has a $50,000 match from Bluffton.
“This project includes the design and construction of walkways, crosswalks, utility relocations, drainage improvements and traffic-calming measures inside and adjacent to the Boundary Street right of way,” Davis wrote in the project request form.
State Sen. Carlisle Kennedy asked for $15 million to pay for improvements at the intersection of Hope Ferry Road and Sunset Boulevard in Lexington. Budget writers included $2 million for the work, which includes adding turn lanes, upgrading traffic signals and completion of a connector road between Hope Ferry Road and Mineral Springs Road. The improvements are expected to take four years to complete.
The intersection provides primary access to River Bluff High School and Midway Elementary School.
“Traffic operations studies completed in 2018 and updated in 2025 document significant peak-hour delays and operational deficiencies that will worsen as corridor growth continues,” Kennedy wrote.
State Sen. Ronnie Sabb, D-Williamsburg, sponsored a $300,000 earmark, for Williamsburg County to restore the Soccee Bridge, which was severely damaged during Hurricane Florence in 2018 and remains closed.
“Its loss has created significant hardship for residents and has increased emergency response times for fire, sheriff and EMS personnel,” Williamsburg County Supervisor Kelvin Washington wrote in a request for the money.
State Reps. Heather Crawford and Val Guest, both Horry County Republicans, secured $6.1 million for repairs and resurfacing of the Socastee Bridge in Horry County. They asked for $10 million to work on the bridge, which sees 30,000 vehicles a day.
“This is one of the only two permanent nonmovable bridges crossing the (intercoastal waterway) from Myrtle Beach to Georgetown,” the two lawmakers wrote in their request. “This main Horry County thoroughfare is important for tourism and hurricane evacuation along the Grand Strand.”
Maintaining the bridge has become increasingly difficult, Horry County Administrator Barry Spivey wrote in supporting documents of the request.
“Delaying this work will not only increase long-term repair costs due to compounding material degradation, but also elevate the risk of more significant structural deficiencies requiring more extensive intervention,” Spivey wrote.
State Rep. Seth Rose, D-Richland, secured $762,500 to help pay for planned Devine Street improvements in Columbia. He had requested $1.5 million to complete the $5 million project. The state in previous years had put $3.5 million toward the work that includes pedestrian and other safety enhancements.
“Incorporating design changes to facilitate a more business friendly environment are important steps for this thriving corridor and may include items such as decorative street and pedestrian lighting, concrete bump outs for pedestrian safety and installation of bike friendly storm grates,” Columbia City Manager Teresa Wilson wrote supporting the project.
State Rep. Paula Rawl Calhoon, R-Lexington, secured $610,000 towards building a Calks Ferry Interchange at the existing Interstate 20 overpass. The planned interchange is meant to improve connectivity and accommodate traffic from the current and planned growth, Calhoon wrote in her request. She requested $10 million for the project.
Calhoon said in an interview that she had been working on the interchange project since she was elected in 2018 and the money allocated by budget writers will help pay for a needed environmental engineering of the project. Planners have held public hearings for the project. Calhoon dismissed the risk of projects skipping the line saying the work requires engineering studies and approvals before physical construction can be done.
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“It’s a jump start to the project,” Calhoon said.