Widening I-26 will get expensive
Watchdog: The Great Train Debate
By Tony Bartelme
Commuter trains aren't cheap. They can cost taxpayers anywhere from $1.3 million to $10 million a mile to build.
Highways aren't cheap either. Consider what's in store for Interstate 26.
The Post and Courier
Railroad tracks pass under rush hour traffic as commuters merge onto Interstate 26 near Remount Road from Interstate 526 on Monday.
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Planners and engineers are working on plans to add two lanes to I-26 from the Neck Area through North Charleston, about 8.2 miles. If and when the state finishes this expansion, an eight-lane highway will run through the heart of the metro area.
Together these widening projects will cost taxpayers at least $300 million, or $36 million per mile for the equivalent of a new two-lane road.
Will spending this money to widen I-26 solve its congestion problem? For a few years, yes. But rush-hour congestion eventually will be as bad as ever.
In fact, if traffic grows at the same rate it has during the past 15 years, we'll have waves of stop-and-go traffic on some stretches of I-26 in just eight years even with the new lanes, a Post and Courier analysis of state traffic data shows.
"With all the growth that's coming from Charleston to Jedburg, I-26 needs all the help it can get extra lanes and a train," said Jennifer Humphreys, senior transportation analyst with Wilbur Smith Associates, a consultant working on several highway and rail plans in the area.
Widening I-26 to eight lanes involves two expensive and complicated projects, one that's about to begin and another that's years away and has no funding.
The first project will add a lane for 2.9 miles on each side of the highway from the Mark Clark to Ashley Phosphate Road, the busiest stretch of I-26.
Crews also will rework the Remount Road and Aviation Avenue intersections. The price tag: $66 million, or $22.7 million a mile. The state recently hired U.S. Group Inc. of Columbia. Work is scheduled to begin soon and is expected to take three years.
This first project is relatively simple because the new lanes will be built within existing rights of way and highway shoulders.
The second widening project has more wrinkles. It would add a lane on each side for 5.3 miles, from the Neck Area to the Mark Clark Expressway.
To pull off this project, crews would redo five bridges and major interchanges at Cosgrove and Dorchester roads.
Four homes, six businesses and one church, mainly in the Dorchester/Cosgrove area, also would be relocated, an environmental assessment shows.
The state has money to do some engineering work on this project, but nothing so far for construction and purchasing rights-of-way, said Matthew Lifsey, regional engineer with the state Department of Transportation. The price tag is in the $230 million range, or about $40 million a mile, he said.
That's about the amount Charlotte is planning to spend for a 30-mile commuter rail system with 11 stations and up to 35 trains daily.
Because this second widening project has no funding, no one can say for sure it will be built. Assuming that it takes two years to find funding and another three years to build, motorists would have just a few years of breathing room before the bottlenecks begin again.
When I-26 has its eight lanes it will be as wide as engineers can reasonably make it.
Adding lanes beyond eight would mean replacing overpasses and taking out swaths of homes and businesses. How much would this cost? $1 billion? More? It's so much that highway planners weren't even willing to hazard a guess.
Reach Tony Bartelme at 937-5554 or tbartelme@postandcourier.com.
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common_sense (anonymous) says...
What works in Atlanta, Boston or DC may not work here. This is an area sealed in by water & marsh on many sides, forcing people to live in specific areas. This also forces employers to have offices in specific areas. If we're to blame anyone for the traffic mess, it is mother nature, for not providing much available land to us except west of town.
Trains are fine & dandy, as long as they are rider-supported. ZERO tax dollars should be used to fund what will eventually be an expensive boondoggle. Face it, we love our cars & will continue to utilize them. 38 mins from downtown to S'ville in the afternoons is NOT a bad commute!
Spend the money on extra lanes on 26 & 526, including HOV lanes from DT to at least Ashley Phosphate. Spend some money on reconstructing the exits on these roads, and build overpasses for traffic on major arteries for at-grade railroad crossings. Widen Hwy 61 & Dorchester Rd. to 17-A.
Money needs to be spent, but definately not on rail. There simply is not a mentality for such here.
I'm just sayin...
July 7, 2008 at 9:58 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
zoomru (anonymous) says...
Common Sense...DEAD ON !!
What is needed is something like SKYTRAN ....take a look.
http://www.unimodal.com/PlaySkytran.html
A complete loop between downtown and Summerville could be built with 300 Million to widen just 9 miles of Interstate. Our officials are nuts!!!
July 7, 2008 at 10:11 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
lou9 (anonymous) says...
They need to find the genius that designed the bottleneck where I-526 dumps onto I-26 and smack the piss out of him. They need to fix that mess first before anything else.
July 7, 2008 at 10:12 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
carolfromsc (anonymous) says...
Work SMARTER, not harder! This should be our mantra every time traffic control comes up! The traffic frequently goes from bottleneck to bottleneck with open stretches in between both on the interstate and on main roads. To me, this says "DESIGN FLAW!"
Saturday we sat at a red light on the Crosstown at Lockwood in a long line of traffic waiting to turn left. There were NO cars going through the intersection or waiting at other stop lights, but still we were waiting for three cars to proceed through the light each time the light turned green.
Surely technology has progressed enough to be able to observe traffic and adjust the timing of traffic lights for a smoother flow.
Trains would be fine if we had larger commercial centers like some cities --but we are all over the place!
I vote for applying brains before we spend any more money!
July 7, 2008 at 10:36 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
justafan (anonymous) says...
Take your pick for poorly designed intersections; this area is full of them.
1. 526/26
2. 17/41
3. any traffic circle
4. West Ashley High School entrance
5. Wando High School entrance
6. Insert you favorite here!!
I agree a little forethought in the design and implementation would go a long way. Timing of the lights would be a great, inexpensive place to start.
But hey we live in an area where we insist on building schools that are over capacity by the time they are complete. If our educators can't get it right what makes us think that the people we are educating are going to get out and make wise decisions? These same people end upon council, school boards and in politics thus guaranteeing the cycle will continue.
July 7, 2008 at 11:12 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
common_sense (anonymous) says...
Zoomru, I received your spam, er, email. Skytran is about as impractical as it gets. This area needs practical solutions, not some neat-o whizz bang personal maglev, or taxpayer funded trains to nowhere.
Widen roads, adopt HOV lanes, and reconstruct exits & overpasses for at-grade rail crossings.
I'm just sayin...
July 7, 2008 at 11:20 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
zoomru (anonymous) says...
Well,
I wonder if Charleston County Schools are thinking of doing the SAME?
http://www.thetandd.com/articles
/2008/07/07/news/
doc487188bacc884821926863.txt
..a four day school week to save on fuel and labor!
July 7, 2008 at 11:22 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
zoomru (anonymous) says...
Common,
I don't mean to SPAM ...I just wanted your thought.
If we ever do get transit ...would you wanted rail or something "LIKE".. Skytran?
just wondering?....
July 7, 2008 at 11:27 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
my2centsworth (anonymous) says...
DON'T DO ANYTHING TO ENCOURAGE MORE TRAFFIC - MORE CARS USING MORE GAS...
BUILD A TRAIN- RAIL SYSTEM, A MONORAIL... SOMETHING - ANYTHING, TO STOP SUCKING UP GAS!
July 7, 2008 at 11:43 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
zoomru (anonymous) says...
Hey 2 CENTS....
How About..
2 Cents, 4 Cents, 6 Cents..a DOLLAR! Everyone for SKYTRAN! Stand Up and HOLLER!!
..just trying to lighten things up...!
http://www.unimodal.com/PlaySkytran.html
July 7, 2008 at 11:50 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
carolfromsc (anonymous) says...
School traffic is a big part of my commuting woes. I can leave ten minutes later during the summer and arrive five minutes earlier when I don't have to compete for space with all the people dropping kids at school. Do high school students even ride the bus any more?
Maybe we could convince them that it's green to ride the school bus!!!
July 7, 2008 at 12:05 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
herakles (anonymous) says...
Just a quick thought. A rail system would be a nice addition. You could travel easily and get work done on the train. I know we all love driving cars, but we shouldn't assume that everyone CAN drive a car. We shouldn't discriminate against people that cannot drive. I for one love driving my car but I would fully support adding a rail system. If anything we need a rail system that relieves the I26, I526 and 17 bottlenecks. That would be a welcome respite. We need to encourage an infrastructure that does not rely on one person driving an 8 person SUV into work everyday just because they can.
July 7, 2008 at 12:12 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
carolfromsc (anonymous) says...
Mouth of the South:
Nobody cares about "being green" except a few lunatics like Al Gore. . .
I know what you mean. I just thought that while we were brainwashing the kids with all the other crap they are taught, we might sneak that one in on them too! Get 'em off the roads!
July 7, 2008 at 12:21 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
justafan (anonymous) says...
carol
The bus system is a joke. Its poorly run, over crowded, unreliable and dangerous. Kind of like the school system.
July 7, 2008 at 12:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
a_set_love (anonymous) says...
Gee boys and girls have a look at this web site. Click on south charleston then check out the cameras.
July 7, 2008 at 12:33 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
KidYendor (anonymous) says...
We need a nice futuristic ski mountain gondola pod system to transport people above roads and into downtown. Until then, make all government workers ride CARTA buses, like Rocky D says.
July 7, 2008 at 12:51 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
iceman1978 (anonymous) says...
The problem with building a train system is that we don't have a centralized population like you find in cities across the northeast and in most of Europe. My dad lives in Boston and will drive his car about two miles to the subway station (or he'll walk there if the weather's nice) and then ride the train into downtown. It works because they have a such a heavy concentration of people working downtown.
The construction of a rail system would be expensive and would require existing buildings to be torn down for the construction of a new infratsructure. What would be better would be to have park-and-ride places around town and an expansion of CARTA, as well as the widening of I-26. Suppose you live in Summerville but work downtown. You could drive your car to the bus station, park, and then take the bus into downtown. Fill a bus going downtown with 30 people and you've removed 30 cars from the freeway commute.
We should mainly focus on routes from suburbs to high concentration work areas. What I would do is build park-and-ride stations around the suburbs and set the locations to downtown, the ports, Westvaco, the AFB and the industrial sections along the Neck Area. That would cover a lot of people's commutes right there.
July 7, 2008 at 1:38 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
PalmettoDP (anonymous) says...
These articles seem to pit road vs. rail, and that shouldn't be the argument we should be having. Many cities that have great transit systems also have horrendous traffic. Properly run transit systems are great where they are practical - because they offer commuters another choice - but that doesn't mean we shouldn't invest in better roads.
In passing, this article displays the ineffectiveness of the tax-and-grant system that our current highway funding relies on. Road projects cannot be delivered in a reasonable amount of time. Public-private partnerships would allow the capital markets to be tapped, making sure projects aren't delivered too little, too late.
July 7, 2008 at 1:58 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
dreamer (anonymous) says...
Iceman, I agree!
I know there is a park-and-ride system at the Kmart, at least, on Rivers. I have passed by several times and seen nurses, especially from downtown hospitals riding the bus. If we had more places like that--let me rephrase, if we had more people who would USE a system like that it would work. I don't think the majority of people today want to ride a bus, though. The stigma that buses are dirty, etc. I think have limited the use, especially around here.
I don't think that some "skyrail" or train system will work, either. It's just not feasible for us. I don't want to see our tax dollars spent on something like that. There's also the aesthetic issue, too. This is Charleston--we're an historic city. Building a futuristic skypod type monorail does nothing for us.
July 7, 2008 at 2:05 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
iceman1978 (anonymous) says...
dreamer, A monorail is nice, but too expensive. What I could see is building a monorail to link the airport with the colloseum and convention center so that people who fly here for business wouldn't have to rent a car.
Also, the northwoods mall area needs to be linked together. What if we had some kind of transit linking the Northwoods Mall with the surrounding shopping centers. Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-Mart and Target. That way you could park in one location and ride over to another without having to cross Rivers.
July 7, 2008 at 2:28 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
zoomru (anonymous) says...
Dreamer.....
Then WE WILL NEVER LEAD THE NATION IN ANYTHING!!! "Its the ENERGY ...ENERGY!!" You don't believe that a SKYTRAN would increase tourism?? Look at SPACE Mountain or DISNEY!! Technology has drastically changed!! This would have multi use capabilities to make it PAY for ITSELF instead of coming back to the Taxpayers. School bussing, Public Transit, Package and mail delivery between 3am and 530am. This has enormoous upside potential with out major right of way and easement considerations. We need to LEAD in something practical other than wide roads like L.A. and San Diego. This is much cheaper than rail buildout.
July 7, 2008 at 2:33 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
iceman1978 (anonymous) says...
ColdBeer, Wait till Cane Bay is finished. Another indoor mall will be built in that area in the space of ten years. Northwoods will really slow down if that happens.
July 7, 2008 at 3:08 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ysillyme (anonymous) says...
coldbeer--I might be mistaken but I would guess you are law enforcement or military. You are very dogmatic about everything you post. My guess is your wife/ girlfriend/boyfriend doesn't let you talk much at home. JMHO
July 7, 2008 at 4:05 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
zoomru (anonymous) says...
Help...I got to pop something??!!!
July 7, 2008 at 9:26 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
robbybobby (anonymous) says...
cancel every road widening, improvement project and put a moratorium on for the next 20 years. Bog it down so much that folks will learn I-95 also goes north. Once the exodus is complete, seal the borders. Enough is way more than enough. All we do is spend more money for more jams.
July 7, 2008 at 10:43 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
pck5 (anonymous) says...
aren't we learning anything from what's happening in our economy right now?? we are a nation plagued by our dependence on the car! i would strongly recommend that everyone check out and read "Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream".
"You're stuck in traffic again.
As you creep along a highway that was widened just three years ago, you pass that awful new billboard: COMING SOON: NEW HOMES! Already the bulldozers are plowing down the trees, and a thin layer of mud is oozing onto the roadway. How could this be happening? Over the years, you've seen a lot of forest and farmland replaced by rooftops, but these one hundred acres had been left unscathed, at the whim of a wealthy owner. Now, it is said, the owner has passed on, the children have cashed out, and the property has fallen victim to the incessant pressures of growth.
These one hundred acres, where you hiked and sledded as a child, are now zoned for single family housing. They have been bought and sold on that premise, and there is a strong demand for new houses. The developer is not about to go away. The anticipated buyers of these new homes, your future neighbors, are respectable professionals, families much like yours, people who could easily be your friends, relatives, or colleagues. These people are welcome to settle this land, to share your suburban dream - over your dead body.
...
You are against growth, because you believe it will make your life worse. And you are correct in that belief, because, for the last fifty years, we Americans have been building a national landscape that is largely devoid of places worth caring about. Soulless subdivisions, residential "communities" utterly lacking in communal life, strip shopping centers, and mile upon mile of clogged collector roads, the only fabric tying our disassociated lives back together..."
Growth is inevitable - but there is such a thing as good growth and bad growth. Charleston is already an ideal city that was built well - let's keep being an example to others - there are a lot of things we're doing right! But widening roads isn't the answer, we need to stop basing our lives around the car. Read this book, I promise it will make you revisit the way we grow.
July 8, 2008 at 12:13 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
blues101 (anonymous) says...
i'm not very familiar with all the feeder roads, etc., yet. Public transportation would probably be supported. Especially when gas reaches the inevitable $10 per gallon.
The stigma that buses are undesirable and dirty - the newer buses out to summerville and back can be kept clean. A light rail system makes sense from summerville to downtown charleston and back, and i think it would have support. except when you come down to the downtown summerville problem - two lanes most of the time, where to put the rail.
Improving RT 61 or the other roads mentioned sounds ok, but not really solving long-term the bad traffic on I-26 that will keep increasing faster than the other roads can ease it. Some cities have Parkways - roads that allow no trucks or commercial vehicles.
wherever i've traveled outside of summerville headed toward charleston - there seem to be a lot more trucks than passenger vehicles. Perhaps one of the roads mentioned that go into downtown charleston can either be widened and outfitted with HOV lanes or possibly become a designated a designated non-commercial vehicle parkway. Maybe splitting up the types of traffic would ease congestion on the interstate.
The long travel times on the interstate during rush hour - has anyone else noticed that the spread is becoming a bigger one? There aren't many times of day that you won't be in heavy traffic. The rate of accidents that i've heard about on I-26 and the number of fatalities has increased.
Perhaps if a rail or some type of transportation is made available, more commercial endeavors will come to the lowcountry and settle out further, so that employees getting around isn't such a dilemma.
July 8, 2008 at 1:27 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
dawhetsell (anonymous) says...
Why don't they take the abandoned railroad beds and mak bike and moped roads for commuters.
July 8, 2008 at 8:52 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
postman01 (anonymous) says...
This displays the same lack of intelligence evidenced by the construction of the first two Cooper River Bridges, both of which were UNDERDESIGNED and failed to anticipate the future rationally. Instead, we were treated to LOW IQ nonsense about how "we would never need that".
We got the Cooper River Bridge right on the third try and this means we have the knowledge base to do this right the first time. Failure to use this knowledge base and apply it logically indicates a LACK OF INTELLIGENCE and this problem means that we'll be reading about the failures of comparatively stupid people instead of addressing this problem as quickly and effectively as possible.
July 8, 2008 at 11:02 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
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