South Carolina is facing unprecedented levels of infrastructure investment, thanks to a rising gas tax, billions in federal COVID recovery money, budget surpluses and plans for more money from Congress.

I'm Gavin Jackson, and on This Week in South Carolina, we look at our major infrastructure, the influx of money coming to the state as it faces rapid population growth and investment.

As well as the related growing pains, as it works to catch up after years of under investing in roads, bridges, broadband and other critical infrastructure.

The challenges are many and ensuring projects benefit all South Carolinians equitably, especially those who have been marginalized in the past where there was a highway - neighborhood or broadband bypassing a rural area is key to sustainable growth across the state.

Low Country leaders recently held a round table on the infrastructure needs of their area, which far surpassed any current funding or even any additional near term congressional funding, and they're not the only region facing this problem.

Senator Lindsey Graham stated that how leaders approach the next decade will determine if the state continues its strong growth, something additional federal investment would help ensure.

>> Didn't they say that the population of the Low Country is going to double by 2040?

If you wait to 2040 to deal with a doubling of population, you waited too long.

So, just think about what I said, by 2040 we're anticipating that the number of people living in this part of South Carolina will double.

So, somebody needs to start thinking about that and planning for it.

That means more water, more sewer, more people on the road.

That means we need to be building new bridges, not just repairing old bridges.

So, I'd like my time in the Senate to go toward the future not just toward the past.

So, I think in this next decade.

We're going to have to really up our game in terms of getting ahead of what's inevitable.

Transportation is changing.

I think we have rising oceans.

We have to mitigate the damage from severe weather, and this one point two trillion is a small down payment on what I think will be a long struggle - but here's the good news, if you invest in these things now it'll pay dividends later.

>> One of those major transportation projects will break ground in November and will change one of the state's most clogged arteries into a modern marvel of the Midlands, known locally as "Malfunction Junction" it's where the north and south lanes of interstate 26 meet the east to west lanes of interstate 20 in the Columbia area with tight merging lanes, congestion and regular accidents.

It was one of the top projects along with hundreds of others Secretary of Transportation, Christy Hall said would be fixed if lawmakers raised the gas tax for the first time in more than three decades, and they did by 12 cents, back in 2017.

>> Yeah, this project have been skipped over for decades.

As a matter of fact, I was a young project engineer on this project back in the late 90s when I first started with the agency.

...it was always too expensive, too hard, too complex, just too big of a project for us to tackle.

...once the roads bill passed in 2017 that gave us the capital to start investing in big projects like this.

So now, we're on the verge of breaking ground on this record breaking project for the state of South Carolina.

>> ...how long will that project take overall?

How long will it take to build this out?

>> It'll take approximately eight years in total and that's all five phases of the project.

>> So, back in 2016, we're talking about the gas tax back in 2016, SCDOT was bringing about 761 million dollars for roads, paving, bridges, interstate widenings, highway widenings, but then the gas tax got passed in 2017, and that money is about to double essentially over that time period, if I'm correct.

So how does that change what's happening in this state when it comes to infrastructure investment?

<Christy> Right.

So, that single infrastructure investment by General Assembly changed us from basically, just barely able to keep up with basic repairs to really being able to get us to a state of good repair over time, and I'm hoping with the federal infrastructure once it passes that we'll be able to tackle some congestion projects, as well, all across the state >> We're talking about all those big interstate projects how long will it take until possibly all those are realized and then at that point, will that be enough.

>> Yeah, I mean our plan will go all the way out to 2045 for the full plan.

Part of what the governor recognized was an opportunity to try to accelerate the widening that we had stretched out previously over a 15 year period on I-26 between Columbia and Charleston.

So, he realized that there was a one time opportunity to maybe apply some one time funding to accelerate that project by six years to compress it to within a nine to ten year construction window to widen that entire 70 mile corridor.

...it's our job to really look for those opportunities once we know what our priorities are, is to find ways to get it done as fast as we can and as inexpensively as we can.

>> You're talking about American Rescue Plan, money that the legislature still has to appropriate, but you guys are making a big push to do and help - like you said move it up the time line when it comes to widening parts of I-26.

>> Right, I mean we view those funds as a tremendous opportunity to make a once in a generational investment, to make a significant impact on really accelerating a project.

>> Do you feel like people say to you, "don't y'all have enough money.

"...I just said you have a 400 million dollar gap every year, but do people come across and say, "We just passed 12 cents for "the gas tax.

You have enough money.

Why are we "using this for roads and bridges?"

>> I think if you look at what it costs just to do business and the type of work that we do.

This project that we're sitting out here today is estimated to be anywhere from one point five to one point six million dollars just by itself, not to mention the one point two billion dollar project that I talked about to widen 26 between Columbia and Charleston.

So, the order of the magnitude of the types of projects that we're talking about is significant and it takes a lot of money to deliver those projects and to build them.

>> ...Secretary, just a few more questions...when we look at freight and we talk about how much freight moves through our state we're talking about 465 million tons are shipped to, from, or through South Carolina every year.

That amount is estimated to grow by 65% by 2040.

Will we be prepared to meet that challenge, when it comes along?

I know we're talking about big interstate improvements and things like that.

...it sounds like we are, but tell us how ready you...are for the next 10, 20, 30 years.

>> ...I alluded to our vision, all the way up to 2045.

This project that we're sitting at is one of those key components ...to help move the freight ...throughout South Carolina.

As I mentioned, there are three major freight pitch points here in the state, all interstate to interstate connections.

We've got plans to improve all of those.

Some of that work is already being completed.

The work right here is getting ready to start.

Next, we'll move down to the Charleston area and tackle 526, 26, and then as I mentioned earlier, make those rural interstate connections that are needed to accommodate the freight needs.

So, we've got a plan in motion.

We're ready to execute it.

...it's all about getting it done and getting it funded ...and possibly accelerating it with some of this one time money.

<Gavin> Roads, bridges, highways and interstates are just part of the infrastructure puzzle that moves people, as well as commerce, throughout the state and beyond.

With freight traffic estimated to grow, port capacity will continue to come online thanks to the harbor deepening project to be completed next year and phase one of the Hugh K. Leatherman Port Terminal off the Cooper River, coming online at a critical time, this past spring.

<Jim Newsome> What has happened is this is the first new terminal to open since 2009.

...the next new term will just by virtue of permitting and the other constraints that going into building a terminal, will not open until 2030.

...it gives us the ability to say that we can add two point four million TEUs of capacity over a ten year time frame, when I firmly believe that other ports are bumping up against their capacity are going to run out of capacity.

So, in theory it should mean that some freight needs to come to our port that was going elsewhere.

What's happened in the pandemic, we're handling record volumes right now in the port system.

Volumes are up again in comparison to 2020, that's the pandemic year, but import volumes are up 16% to 20% over 2019.

So,...people are buying record amounts of stuff and most of that stuff is being sourced in Asia.

>> ...how well positioned are we to handle that growth, Jim?

>> I don't think there's a port that is better positioned in terms of infrastructure in this country than we are.

We've got a new terminal.

We've got two great inland ports.

One in Greer.

One in Dillon.

We significantly upgraded our existing terminal.

We added 700 TEUs of capacity there.

So, I think we are in excellent shape.

We're working now to sort of improve our rail infrastructure within the Charleston area.

We have an imperfect rail infrastructure, because we never did on dock rail to Mount Pleasant, to Wando - We'll try to fix that with a new intermodal container transfer facility and hopefully a barge operation to serve it.

>> Jim, what does the growth at the Port of Charleston in that area look like, when it comes to attracting companies to the area, of logistics and how that all works out with the inland ports in taking trucks off our interstates?

>> A bunch of things to say there.

Number one, Walmart is building a new import distribution center in Ridgeville.

That's really a game changer for us.

It's... three million square feet about 70 thousand containers, thousand jobs in Ridgeville.

We're also doing E-commerce trans-loading in a trans-loading facility on our Wando terminal.

So, that's - our growth is going to be in the retail segment.

The manufacturers really carried us for the last decade.

This is now the decade of retail and E-commerce distribution.

So, we've got to get more in the mainstream with that.

We got the facilities to do it and then imports, also sets us apart.

So, if you think about it, if we moved two hundred, thousand containers for an inland port network, that's two hundred thousand trucks that are not touching the road somewhere along the way.

I mean they're partly that way to get to the rail, but say for two hundred miles between Charleston and Greer, they're on a train instead of on a road system.

So, it does contribute to the reliability of the supply chain infrastructure in the state.

So, again, I would put our network, our global, our port network in South Carolina up against any in the country, today, and I know we would win that.

>> Looking forward, Jim, how does all this position the state for the next 10, 20 years?

...what more needs to be done?

>> Well, we have spent since 2015, about two billion dollars preparing for the future.

I mean this is a long cycle infrastructure business, ...people ask me during pandemic, "are we "going to stop investing?"

We say no.

We build 50 year assets.

We really have put our nose to the grindstone.

We spent two billion dollars.

Borrowed a lot of money, got a lot of support from the state, but the result of that is the infrastructure that we have created - we will have five point three million TEUs of capacity in place by 2033.

That's an exceptional amount of growth, and should put us in a position to gain share in the US port market as the southeast continues to grow.

<Gavin> While ports and transportation infrastructure move people and freight, broadband internet moves information, connecting doctors with patients, teachers with students and employees with the office, but only if that high speed internet is nearby and for hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians, that still doesn't exist in 2021 - but the pandemic highlighted that reality and now after years of talk, it's being backed up by investment, with leaders equating it to electrification of rural America in the 1930s.

>> So, we leap forward to today and we're in a similar position, internet... COVID has laid bare the challenge that we've got.

It's made it abundantly clear to everybody that we have to fix this problem of digital connectivity and so we've been working really hard on it to attack this challenge and to make money move in the right directions and mapping is central to it all.

...simply stated, the green areas are good.

Those are already served areas.

The white areas are where nobody lives, and then I tell everybody to look for the freckles.

Those are the places where we have a lot of homes and the internet sucks.

>> ... how you put it, yeah.

>> Picky about, right?

- but that's the reality.

>> So, talking about areas like here versus areas like Colleton or Abbeville and...parts of Orangeburg, at least.

>> That's right and so by looking for the freckles.

These are the places where we can find a lot of homes, that's also really interesting, as well because one home equals one customer for an internet service provider.

So, just because ten residents live in that home doesn't give that internet service provider ten customers.

...we need to have one home one customer, right!

>> Gotcha!

>> ...so the best possible way that you can bring internet into the family home today is with fiber optic cable.

I think everybody knows that.

Fiber is the top of the food chain - >> These black areas, you're talking about - >> ...so you see honestly, it'll catch some people by surprise.

We have extremely strong connectivity in Colleton County, Abbeville County - >> Smaller counties in the state.

>> Smaller counties...they started way back when it wasn't popular to do so.

They rebuilt the whole county, Horry County is very well.

Lexington County and really a lot of the upstate is covered very well too, with cable.

So, the cable and fiber connected homes are where we have strong connectivity and then where we're really struggling of course in the state of South Carolina is the DSL areas, digital subscriber line is when internet came into the family home with a twisted pair of copper, old school copper and the thing that keeps me up at night is the pink, the pink areas in the state.

These are the places where no internet service provider exits, and so literally a resident will pick up their phone and try to call and install internet service, and it's not available.

That's what we call an access problem versus an adoption problem.

...access is physical infrastructure and adoption is the choice to subscribe to service.

>> How do we overcome that problem?

I mean - Tell us what we're doing right now to ...make some headway in these pink areas you're talking about.

So, we're trying to bring - that's where investment comes in, it's helpful to understand the economics of broadband.

<Gavin> Okay.

>> So, one mile of buried fiber optic cable costs about 40 thousand dollars.

...One mile of aerial delivery, in other words, on telephone poles costs about 28 thousand miles.

So to go multiple miles to reach three or four family homes is very difficult and that's why we have what we have right now... lack of internet in these areas because of the fact that the economics haven't made sense for those communities.

So, the way you fix that and the way we change the calculus is by making investments.

So, the way that investments happen for these sparsely populated areas is with subsidy, for me, either the federal government or the state government and that's what's really neat about the broadband office now is we have the ability with support of Department of Commerce, most recently and the General Assembly to make direct investments into the broadband infrastructure to push out internet where it's never been before.

Really exciting thing is we were able to collaborate with South Carolina Department of Commerce.

This past January, and we got another 30 million dollars and we had a grant program that started half of the year.

We got all of those awarded and we're going to connect about right around 19 thousand homes with that money.

...we focus those principally on 14 counties that were chosen for us by the General Assembly, and that's an exciting time and combined with that, we have federal investment happening in parallel and that was our big challenge is to make sure that state money and federal money were not overlapping each other and we're getting the biggest bang for the buck we can get for the State of South Carolina.

So, all in all, I think in the next 18 months we're going to connect about 25 thousand homes.

So, of course we make the investment that doesn't happen overnight.

So, it takes about 18 months for that construction to complete.

...Jim, just talking to those counties at the Department of Commerce that state Department of Commerce grant, those are counties that really need it, it sounds like.

How do you incentivize these providers to get into these counties where people really need access the most?

Well, again, we change the calculus.

So, if normally it costs hundred dollars.

We invest money, dollar for dollar and that's what we did dollar for dollar match to bring the costs of building out the internet way down.

So, we've focused in Allendale, Bamberg and and the 14 counties.

That's exactly what we did.

We had a dollar for dollar grant program where we completely changed the calculus of "doesn't make sense to build there or not.

So, we cover the one time cost of infrastructure or half of it and then of course, the monthly expense that a resident will pay, then covers the operating costs longer.

>> ...looking to the future, let's talk about American Rescue Plan dollars that are still need to be appropriated by the General Assembly right now and also perhaps money from this bipartisan infrastructure bill.

What do you see, right now happening, when ...it comes to the American Rescue Plan dollars?

...what could be coming your way, what you guys...need to close this gap?

<Jim> So, of course, it's above my pay grade to allocate ARPA dollars.

That'll come from the General Assembly, but we did make a recommendation to the Accelerate SC task force.

We presented and they have presented to the Governor, four hundred and 91 million dollar recommendation for broadband.

So, yes we're counting and hoping that will occur.

<Gavin> For South Carolina to move forward, all South Carolinians have to benefit, urban, suburban, rural, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian and Native American.

Historically, that has not always been the case.

...John Simpkins, president of MDC, a Durham based nonprofit that equips a southern leaders, institutions and communities to improve economic mobility and advance equity so as with such investment opportunities thanks to federal aid and more, diversity, equity and inclusion must be considered in all projects.

<John Simpkins> Gavin, when we talk about traditional infrastructure, talk about building things and I think that should be at the core of the approach in terms of ensuring equity and inclusivity in this process.

First, building a case or what needs to go where, and which roads need to be fixed, which bridges need to be repaired, where other vital parts or infrastructure including broadband need to be situated.

Second, build consensus for that case.

Third, build a plan based on that consensus, and then fourth, build out according to the plan.

At each step along the way in those four steps, there is an opportunity to involve the community in a very direct and consequential way and to expand opportunities so that people who can bring to bear their experiences and expertise and skills can actually assist in each step along that way.

John, kind of talk about that historical context.

Talk about...why it's important to have this input when we look into inclusivity and equity, especially when we look at historically how these big infrastructure projects have divided neighborhoods, have taken advantage of some folks.

>> Yeah Gavin... if someone came up to you today and asked if they can build a highway in your backyard, you probably wouldn't be that excited about it, and you'd also have the means to make that displeasure heard, and to really, to fight against it using your own resources and your own access.

These projects tended to happen historically in neighborhoods that couldn't fight back, the path of least resistance, and it was often a way to cut off communities from other parts of the city; therefore from Bible economic opportunities to physically separate them in ways that would cause those communities to be disadvantaged over time.

...what we can avoid in this case is to think more carefully and critically about where's the best physical location for infrastructure projects and how can they actually help to enhance community cohesion to bring communities together, not just communities of color, but all people who live in towns and cities across the state, so that they can be part of a vibrant city... civic life.

...I think downtown Greenville is the best example of how you can reshape the physical landscape in a way that actually brings people together rather than pushing them apart.

>> SCDOT Secretary, Christy Hall acknowledges the strides her agency is making when it comes to product development and execution, like the expansion of interstate 526.

>> It is critically important that we do things differently than we have in the past.

We are committed on that project, and really all of our projects to make sure that we're considering equity and diversity and inclusion, not only in our approach to the project but in our policies and procedures on how we're executing different parts and phases of the project.

That particular project, we're hoping to become the national model for how to do projects like that with looking at making early investments to build replacement, affordable housing, right there in the community.

>> 526.

>> 526, correct, build community... centers there for the community, do job training, job opportunities, apprenticeships, scholarships, I mean really use it as an opportunity to lift up the community as a part of the overall improvement in the infrastructure for the area.

So, the project has to fit in with the community and not run over the community.

...we're committed to that being a great project that we're all proud of at the end of the day and I look forward to continuing to work with a lot of the advocacy groups we have in the region to make that a reality.

>> ...John, when we look at this money, we look at...what could be coming to our states, specifically in the south, a growing region, especially after what we saw in the last census.

We're all growing down here.

How important is it to really take the ball when it comes to either those recovery dollars, or budget surpluses, or even the congressional bipartisan infrastructure bill?

How important is it to make sure that these resources go to the right places to keep up with this growth at such a critical time?

>> It's not an understatement to say that this is generational spending.

These are budget levels that we will likely never see again in our lifetimes, and to be careful, to be thoughtful about how we deploy those resources, will make a difference not just for us and for our generation, but thinking two or three generations down the road.

If we can look back on this time and say we made critical investments to think about what your lives were going to be like, not just to fix the pothole, but to recreate the way in which we can organize our lives, so that we can live in rural areas and not have to move to cities, so that we can strengthen the capacity of our cities to create jobs.

It would be transformational.

And we have that opportunity before us right now.

>> Infrastructure investment is the discussion, we'll be having in the state for the months and years and even decades ahead, especially as these products are built out.

...to stay up to date with the latest infrastructure news and more, check out the South Carolina Lede, It's a podcast that I host twice a week that you can find on South Carolina publicradio.org or where ever you find podcasts.

For South Carolina ETV I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well, South Carolina.

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