Posted on Sat, May. 13, 2006

email this

print this

Tolls sought for I-95

Money would be used to pay for freeway road maintenance

The Associated Press

South Carolina highway officials want to begin charging tolls along Interstate 95 in two or three years to pay for neglected maintenance on the freeway.

If federal officials and state lawmakers approve the plan, it will be the first federal highway in the state with tolls.

State Department of Transportation officials have filed a form expressing interest with the Federal Highway Administration, said Susan Johnson, the agency’s director of engineering outreach.

State law does not allow charging tolls on existing highways, so the measure would require both federal approval and a vote by the state Legislature.

“We’re not making a decision to toll or not to toll,” said Tee Hooper, the agency’s board chairman. “DOT is only positioning itself in the event the Legislature made that decision.”

Rick Todd, president of the South Carolina Truckers Association, said charging tolls would create an unnecessary expense for businesses.

“We just think it’s a bad precedent to toll our interstate highways,” he said.

And he suggested the move could lead to tolls on interstates 85 or 26, which commuters use more frequently. “It certainly breaks the ice,” Todd said.

South Carolina already has tolls on two state highways — Cross Island Parkway at Hilton Head Island and the Southern Connector near Greenville. Officials plan to charge tolls on a proposed Interstate 73 stretch to the Grand Strand.

In the federal application, officials pointed out that the rates of crashes and fatalities make the route “the deadliest of South Carolina interstates.”

There were 7,177 accidents on the freeway from 2000 to 2004, and 128 have died along I-95 in the past five years.

“Existing funding constraints have severely limited maintenance and construction projects across the state,” officials wrote in the application. “I-95 cannot be adequately maintained or improved without an alternative revenue source, like the collection of tolls.”

Six of the 20 states through which I-95 passes — Maine, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland — charge tolls on portions of the freeway, Johnson said.

Senate Transportation Committee chairman Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken, said he would oppose tolls.

“If I’m here, I’ll fight tolling I-95 as long as I’m standing,” said Ryberg, a candidate for state treasurer. “It’s counter to the movement of people across our country. You toll it. They toll it. I don’t want to be first.”