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The Transportation Department has been pushing forward with permitting and design work on the proposed widening since April 2004. There have been 34 deaths on the 22-mile stretch since 1997, including 13 since January 2004.
The state has found $26.4 million for the project, but the Transportation Department is relying on a $90 million grant application and $48 million loan that will be presented to the State Infrastructure Bank today for its approval.
The expectation earlier this year was that the board would have about $150 million available to distribute statewide, but board staffer Debra Rouree said that number will be updated today.
The Transportation Department will face competition for the bank dollars, with applications frrry, Charleston, Anderson and York counties for road widening and parkway projects.
The loan would be paid off by the Transportation Department. In September, the Transportation Commission committed up to $5 million a year to the debt payment if the $48 million loan is approved.
The bank board isn't expected to make a decision on the applications today.
Applications will be forwarded to a three-person committee of the seven-member board that will rate the projects and return recommendations to the full board.
If financing and permitting can be secured by the end of the year, Transportation Department officials have said they're hopeful they can get the project started by March.
Under a new grading scale approved in October, the applications will be weighed based on the proposed financial plan, the public benefit and the project approach.
Financing for the project includes:
About $300,000 in short-term improvements, including restricting the road's maximum speed limit to 50 mph, adding rumble strips in the median and on the shoulders to keep drivers alert and increased patrols, appear to have reduced accidents and injuries on the highway.
Since Gov. Mark Sanford announced a three-week enforcement campaign July 11, followed later that week by the road improvements, accidents are occurring once every nine days, compared with once every three days in the first six months of the year, according to numbers from the S.C. Department of Public Safety.
Injuries have been limited to one every 28 days since July 11, compared with one every 11 days before the short-term efforts.
But Buddy Jones, chief of the Sheldon Fire District for 18 years, said Wednesday that the numbers shouldn't leave officials complacent in getting the road widened.
"It comes in spurts," he said of fatalities. "We've got to fix this highway or someone is going to die."
There were two fatalities on the highway in 2003, six in 2004 and seven this year.
County leaders and other local officials will be attending today's meeting to support the application, including a representative from the Coastal Conservation League, a Charleston-based environmental group that has been concerned about permit applications for the project.
"We support the application," said Dana Beach, the league's executive director. "There are some issues with the permit, but we don't feel it's necessary to involve the infrastructure bank."
The Southern Environmental Law Center, in conjunction with the Coastal Conservation League, have identified concerns about wetlands mitigation and traffic access.
But Beach said the Transportation Department seems to be on the right track, but should make solutions clear in permit applications for the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
"The foolish decision would be to press for a decision on a deficient application," Beach said, suggesting it may take until the end of January to resolve some environmental concerns.
