S.C. Lawmakers Considering Toll Lanes to Boost Revenue, Reduce Congestion

Skylar Laird/S.C. Daily Gazette

COLUMBIA — Facing rising inflation and population growth, legislators and transportation officials are considering adding toll lanes to highways as a way of increasing revenue and reducing congestion.

Federal law prohibits states from putting toll booths on existing highway lanes that receive any federal money. Any proposal that did so likely wouldn’t be very popular among legislators, anyway, Secretary of Transportation Justin Powell told a panel of senators Thursday.

What the Department of Transportation could do, however, is add new lanes with tolls, often referred to as “choice lanes.” A bill introduced this week by Senate Transportation Chairman Larry Grooms would allow the Department of Transportation to do that, as long as the intention was to reduce traffic.

Under existing law, the DOT can’t add tolls to any highways unless the Legislature passes a law telling it to do so. Money from tolls has to go toward paying construction or maintenance costs on the road where the toll booth sits.

“Certainly, to have that expanded and allowed would be a very important item for us to do,” Powell told a Senate Transportation subcommittee Thursday.

It was the panel’s first meeting on the bill, which was mostly a presentation from Powell. Senators took no vote.

South Carolina has only one toll road, a 16-mile stretch of Interstate 185 south of Greenville. A second toll road on Hilton Head Island stopped collecting fees in 2021 after the revenues collected over 23 years paid off the money used to build the road.

Senators have previously tossed around the idea of using tolls to fund more construction. But those discussions never gained traction.

Under the “choice lane” proposal, existing lanes would remain free, but drivers could “pay their way out of congestion,” Powell said. Details of any potential tolls, including how much they might cost and where they might go, remain up in the air. Just over the South Carolina border, Charlotte uses similar lanes.

Increases in construction costs mean money doesn’t go as far as it once did, Powell said. Costs for major projects skyrocketed in recent years, and the state’s gas tax doesn’t stretch as far as it did before, he said Thursday, reiterating concerns he told the governor in a December letter.

Gov. Henry McMaster asked legislators to spend an additional $1.1 billion on road and bridge projects this year to keep up with inflation as part of his executive budget request.

Optional toll booths could help supplement whatever funding the department receives, bringing in more revenue for the agency that could allow it to speed along planned road projects, Powell said.

As the state’s population booms, much of the DOT’s work in recent years has focused on expanding interstates to keep traffic flowing. Adding toll booths to new lanes could be a cheaper way to widen interstates and accomplish the same goal, Powell said.

The agency is considering improvements to Interstate 526 between Mount Pleasant and West Ashley to reduce traffic around North Charleston. But that project could cost around $7 billion. Powell said the agency was not ready Thursday to give details about it.

Adding “choice lanes” on I-526 and I-26 “has the potential to not only reduce travel times for folks willing to pay the toll significantly,” Powell said. “It also has the potential to reduce the travel times for people in the free lanes at a rate greater than what we’re contemplating with the $7 billion project, and likely at less out-of-pocket to the state.”

Charleston could be a prime candidate, since it’s the state’s “biggest area for congestion right now,” Powell said. Other fast-growing areas, such as Greenville and Myrtle Beach, may also benefit from tolls.

Toll roads are never popular, said Sen. Ed Sutton, a Charleston Democrat.

“But you’ve got to pay for roads somehow,” Sutton added.

One way of doing that would be raising the gas tax, which is unlikely. Legislators last approved raising the tax in 2017, and that compromise took a decade of debate. The law increased the tax by 12 cents over six years, to 28 cents a gallon.

Even at the local level, recent attempts to raise sales taxes to fund transportation projects within a county have died at the ballot box. With that in mind, Sutton said he’d support implementing tolls.

“Other options just aren’t working,” he said.

The bill floats several other ways of drawing in more revenue for road projects.

To offset increased traffic on the roads from people moving into the state, the bill proposes a $2,500 fee per single-family home in new subdivisions, or $1,500 per multi-family unit. The Department of Transportation would use that money for projects meant to reduce traffic in the county where the fee was paid. The idea is to offset the influx of new residents, Powell said.

“I’m open to ideas and solutions that can deal with that issue without burdening the existing taxpayer with that growth,” Powell said.

While the gas tax is unlikely to rise, the bill would introduce a fee on public charging stations for electric vehicles.

South Carolina lags behind its southeastern neighbors in buying electric vehicles, but around 32,000 such cars are registered in the state. More EVs drive through on vacations or trips to other states, Powell said.

People who wanted to stop and charge in the Palmetto State would have to pay an extra 4 1/2 cents per kilowatt-hour of charging under the bill.