Like a cat with nine lives

The I-526 extension is a project with powerful advocates and an ever-changing profile. The latest effort to advance the expressway comes from the Charleston County Legislative Delegation, which has approved a resolution asking the state Department of Transportation to take over the controversial project.

Too bad our local lawmakers weren't willing to go to bat for County Council and critics of the expressway who wanted to use available funding to improve existing roads instead.

Too bad they didn't specify their I-526 proposal on the agenda of their recent meeting for the benefit of interested constituents, who might have attended.

The delegation reportedly wants the DOT to extend the loop as a freeway. If so, that would revive the plan for a limited-access highway across Johns Island, connecting to the James Island connector at Folly Road.

That would spell an end to the plan, supported by Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, to build an at-grade road with numerous intersections and a speed limit of 35 to 45 mph. Elsewhere the highway is 60 mph.

But the freeway plan would be substantially more expensive -- as much as $190 million, according to state estimates. Presumably, the delegation expects the DOT to pay the additional cost. Currently $420 million has been pledged to the project by the State Infrastructure Bank. Even building it as now planned would cost another $69 million.

The SIB Board also has requested that the DOT take over the project. So the pressure is on, particularly since the delegation includes two of the state's most powerful legislators: Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell and House Speaker Bobby Harrell.

Together, by virtue of their offices, they appoint a majority of members of the SIB Board. That probably explains the SIB's tenacious support for the project.

In its letter to the DOT, the delegation notes that the agency would be responsible for "making certain that all of the federal criteria will be met." That would certainly mean another round of public hearings on the project.

The freeway plan was given bad reviews in a 1999 public hearing on Johns Island, held by the state DOT. More recently, plans for a slower, gentler highway were generally rejected in five public hearings.

Maybe sentiment will have changed on behalf of the freeway, considering the additional traffic in West Ashley that the extension is supposed to alleviate.

Maybe Mayor Riley's "silent majority" would pack the next round of public hearings.

No question, many residents of Kiawah and Seabrook support the plan as part of a quicker route across Johns Island.

But first, the highway commission has to agree to take on the project -- even as the DOT is under broad legislative scrutiny for further agency reform. One reason for the renewed calls for reform is the commission's penchant for politically driven projects and its failure to follow stated road priorities.

Powerful supporters of the I-526 project have refused to let the project die since it was rejected by County Council in June.

But there's no way to avoid public input on any new or revised plan that the DOT considers. And so far the large majority of local residents have opposed it, even as the supposed benefits of the project have been explained -- again and again.

So the skids can only be greased so much for the next permutation of I-526, even as a majority of the local legislative delegation line up behind it.

And even if the DOT is willing to accept the project and push it to the beginning of the line, there's that extra $190 million or so needed for the now-preferred freeway plan.