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U.S. 17 plans can preserve aesthetics, as well as safety

Governor right to push for maintaining highway's beauty

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We're glad to see Gov. Mark Sanford take an active interest in the environmental and aesthetic impacts of widening U.S. 17 in northern Beaufort County.

There's no reason this project can't be done right, preserving the natural beauty in the pristine ACE Basin while making a dangerous highway safer. And it can be done on a timeline that gets the widening done as quickly as possible. The way to do that is to make such goals a part of the process from day one. The plans can reflect that mind-set and still be ready to go when the financing is in place.

The governor is calling on the state Department of Transportation to avoid duplicating the barren, four-lane expanses that crisscross the state when considering widening plans for U.S. 17. Sanford is asking for wooded medians and walking and bike paths along the road that splits one of the state's ecological gems. The ACE Basin comprises more than 150,000 acres of public and private preserves that surround the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto rivers.

Proponents of widening the highway worry that addressing environmental concerns might slow the project. But that doesn't have to be the case.

As it works to put together funding, the highway department has been moving forward with the $173 million project, hoping to begin construction in April or May. The department recently made a $138 million request to the State Infrastructure Bank to pay for most of the project. In a letter of support for the application, Sanford stressed concerns that the highway maintain its rural characteristics.

Wooded medians are natural barriers between oncoming lanes of traffic. Plans now call for a wooded median along a small portion of the road just south of the Combahee River Bridge, where several oaks line the existing road.

Cost increases for the added rights of way needed likely would be offset by the reduced need for guardrails once a natural barrier is in place, highway officials say.

We're also glad to see another recommendation from the governor -- walking and bike trails -- already addressed in the plans.

Thirty-five-foot buffers are to be part of the project and include 10-foot walking and bike trails. The paths would be developed as money becomes available.

The infrastructure bank, South Carolina's bonding agency for large capital projects, probably will decide in January or February whether to award the $90 million grant and $48 million loan requested for the project. The bank is expected to have $300 million to hand out.

But competition for the money is fierce. At its Dec. 15 meeting, the bank board fielded more than $1 billion in requests. Charleston County alone asked for $720 million -- $420 million to extend Interstate 526 from West Ashley over Johns Island to James Island and $300 million to build a port access road off Interstate 26. Anderson and Horry counties asked for $150 million each.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the request for money for U.S. 17 has the most compelling of arguments. The road is simply too dangerous.