Interstate 73 Looms Real

Route choice serves the greater good but isn't welcome news to everyone

In announcing the route that Interstate 73 will follow from Interstate 95 near Dillon to Myrtle Beach on Tuesday, the S.C. Department of Transportation made most folks in our communities happy. Our long-awaited limited-access highway link to the inland interstate complex looms real at last.

As U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has noted, I-73 will ease visitor travel to and from the beach, making the Grand Strand an even more appealing tourism destination. And once the road is completed, our communities - particularly those between Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach - will have a high-speed hurricane evacuation route.

It is important, however, for those made jubilant by the DOT announcement to remember that I-73 will disrupt the people who live and work in its path. As business leaders and beachside residents cheer that I-73 is becoming real at last, these good people face the loss of homes and businesses, the shrinkage of farms and the prospect that the superhighway will bring noise and traffic into their midst.

They are on the losing end of the greater-good philosophy on which all major public works projects are founded. The state, using its power of eminent domain, will acquire a broad swath of land for the new highway between I-95 and S.C. 22 near the Poplar Mill community - 60 miles in all. The landowners will be compensated at fair-market value. What justifies their sacrifice - in theory, at least - is the broad economic and public-safety benefit that I-73 will bring to every community along its path. But the pain of property loss and the loss of a treasured rural way of life is real and enduring - and none of us should forget that.

The other folks who likely won't find the I-73 announcement much cause for jubilation live between Surfside Beach and in the Waccamaw Neck. They had hoped that the DOT would route the highway into their midst to guarantee a relatively painless escape when huge storms threaten.

The task of finding a South Strand route across the Waccamaw River to U.S. 707 and U.S. 378 - with minimal disruption to wetland - remains. The local leaders who worked hard to make I-73 a reality now should turn their energy toward making a South Strand connector happen.

No one should be lulled into believing that construction of I-73 is imminent now that the DOT has chosen its route. The agency must complete environmental studies. And S.C. legislators next year must nail down a permanent funding source for the state's share of the project's estimated $2 billion cost. Gov. Mark Sanford in February signed legislation allowing the DOT to assess tolls on motorists for I-73, but that legislation stops short of requiring such. The federal funding for I-73 secured through the prodigious efforts of U.S. Rep. Henry Brown, R-Hanahan., Graham and U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-Greenville, alone won't cover the project's cost.

All that said, it does seem miraculous that the project has advanced as far as it has. Only four years ago, Brown, a member of the House transportation committee, pledged to make the long-discussed-but-never-actualized I-73 project his top priority as a member of Congress. Now, with the help of a host of public and private leaders, it's really going to happen. Those who pitched in on this project deserve great praise for their service to our communities.