Posted on 08/19/2017 10:50:33 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
When it comes to spending and infrastructure, one of South Carolina’s great white whales rose from the deep with news last week that the Army Corps of Engineers approved a permit to begin work on the South Carolina leg of I-73. Ultimately, the interstate highway could take motorists from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula straight down to Myrtle Beach.
The permit covers the whole state length, slicing across its northeastern corner, starting near Bennettsville. Construction could begin within two years, supporters say, on a project first contemplated in 1982.
The southern half alone, linking I-95 to the Conway Bypass, is estimated to cost more than $1 billion, with total costs estimated now to reach as high as $4 billion.
U.S. Representative Tom Rice, the Republican from Myrtle Beach, hailed the permitting, saying that “studies indicate” the highway will generate approximately 22,000 permanent jobs.
Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Brad Dean seconded that, saying the highway would bring “more jobs, higher wages” and “economic growth” to an area dominated by the tourism industry. Myrtle Beach already sees more than 15 million annual visitors.
Not to be outdone, the Department of Transportation, on its I-73 website, i73insc.com, says the new highway “would support economic growth and regional competitiveness for the State of South Carolina.”
And then there is Ruby Durham of WMBF news, the NBC TV affiliate in Myrtle Beach, who had this to report last week:
There’s just one thing.
These claims about jobs and economic activity generated by a highway seem to stem in large part from one source, a 2011 report by the firm Chmura Economics & Analytics, with offices in Cleveland, Spokane, and Richmond, Virginia, entitled “Economic Impact of I-73 in South Carolina.”
There have been other studies, but here, the Chura report is foundational. Its summary states: “The existence of I-73 will inject billions of dollars into the I-73 Corridor and South Carolina, and provide tens of thousands of jobs in tourism, retail, service, and warehouse industries. After road completion, annual economic impacts estimated at $2.0 billion will sustain 22,347 jobs in South Carolina in 2030 and beyond.”
From the “about” part of its website:
The report was prepared for the North Eastern Strategic Alliance, a Florence-based “regional economic development organization that serves a nine-county region in the northeast corner of South Carolina.” Its current executive committee members include state senators Luke Rankin, Kent Williams, and Hugh Leatherman.
The organization touts its economic development expertise, stating “NESA will work with CSX (railroad), the South Carolina Department of Transportation, water and sewer authorities, telecommunications companies, and energy companies to identify locations that have the infrastructure your company requires to be successful.”
It’s fair to say that NESA and I-73’s other boosters got what they’d hoped for from the Chmura report. They touted it.
Tom Stickler, a retired engineer from Pawleys Island, heard that hoopla six years ago. “In my work as an engineer,” he says now, “you kind of have to say, let’s look at the numbers beneath this report — and this report just didn’t smell right…
“There were two big errors. The first was when Chmura said you’ll save one to two hours of travel time on this new highway. Well, that’s 45 miles. It’s kind of hard to save one to two hours on 45 miles.”
The Army Corps estimated the saved travel time as being more like 20 minutes, Stickler notes. The result, he says, is a 367 percent error in calculating the increase in tourism due to reduced travel time.
The second error, he says, compounded the first by assuming every visitor to Myrtle Beach would come on I-73. A state DOT study found that if I-73 were a toll road, as is contemplated, at a cost of 12 cents per mile, fewer than 10 percent of drivers bound for Myrtle Beach would use it.
Extrapolating from the initial errors, Stickler concluded that the estimate of new jobs that would be created “is off by a factor of 40.”
“Keep in mind the old maxim, garbage in, garbage out,” he says. “It doesn’t matter how sophisticated your computer program is if the data that you input is garbage.”
The new permanent jobs created could be more like 550 — not 22,000, he says.
“It’s unlikely they’d get even 3 percent of what they’re claiming if they do build I-73. What we have here is a situation where apparently nobody else has checked these numbers because they were so happy.”
Stickler tried to communicate what he’d discovered.
“I’ve given a copy of my critique of the Chmura report to politicians, the DOT commission — I’ve sent it to anybody and everybody, because they want to build that damn road… Nobody has ever rebutted my analysis. I’ve invited them to. They think, ‘If we ignore this guy, he’ll go away.’
“That’s just wrong.”
On Tuesday, Rice and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham met with federal Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, looking for I-73 funding. On his Facebook page, Rice wrote:
In a way, the question here, the one that Stickler raises, is not whom you’re going to believe but how lucky you feel.
When the legislature got the gas tax increase it wanted earlier this year, it swore that this time, the roads would be fixed. That tax goes into effect Saturday, the first in a series of hikes over the next six years.
Should the roads not get fixed, which is certainly a possibility, it’s hard to imagine the money will be refunded or the tax lowered, because the funds most likely will be gone — funneled in part, at least, to new roads construction, although the DOT commission maintains none will go to I-73.
Should $4 billion of someone’s money be spent on a new highway and just a few hundred jobs are created, no one will un-build that road.
It looks like the recently passed $0.16 per gallon gas tax increase over eight years will not be spent on road repair and safety improvements.
The other issue with I-73 and the economic benefit report is that the remainder of the corridor, especially through the Appalachians, is no where close to being built. Will local traffic support the claimed jobs?
Now if they could just teach them how to drive safely in that state. Earlier this year I was headed to an amusement park there. It was raining lightly, but the road surface was not that bad at the time. I was going 75 but it wasn’t fast enough for the idiot that passed me using the right shoulder doing close to 90. I thought Alabama and Florida drivers were bad, but South Carolina seems to have them beat.
...ping....
I thought Alabama and Florida drivers were bad, but South Carolina seems to have them beat.
No, that was most likely a driver from New York or New Jersey.
The biggest issue with the claimed jobs is the time frame in which those jobs are created. Having spent time in WV, New highways will bring jobs to the area near them (improved transportation always brings jobs to an area), it just often takes 5-20 years for those jobs to actually appear. I do not know what the direction or error in the expected number of jobs is.
Example of increased jobs and the time frame: How long does a two pump gas station that due to the new Highway is now off an exit take to get financing to build a 10 pump service station? Then there is the time to build the complex.
I’m originally from Bennettsville. At one time this area was prosperous and a nice place to live. However, it has suffered the fate of so many small southern towns trying to transition from an Agricultural based economy. The entire county of Marlboro is in a death spiral. There are minimal job opportunities for educated people and the segment of the population increasing is the one that takes from the tax base instead of supporting it. To give you an idea of how economically depressed this area is now, the only chain grocery store is a small Walmart in Bennettsville. The local hospital closed last year and there are no identifiable department stores where people can shop for clothes. The so called leaders of this area have pushed I-73 for over 20 years as a “job creator”. These are the same people who own most of the land the interstate will go through so their true motives are not difficult to discern.
A new interstate highway? South Carolina, just say no. Lousy idea...
The major estimates of the economic impact comes from an outfit by the name of Chmura; which is not far from “chimera”; and a chimera is an illusion or fabrication of the mind; especially an unrealizable dream.
And the little state of South Carolina is already criss crossed by five Interstate highways.
I say if South Carolina wants to build the road on it’s own as a state highway, go ahead, but I’d not approve a dime of the federal highway funds to it.
They had a license plate that matched the state. Now I have also seen some very stupid drivers in Massachusetts too. I have been in all 50 states and driven in 48 of them.
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