Tuesday’s editorial hopes we’re one of the last to get the
new traffic signal the state DOT is rolling out:
Imagine
the following:
You pull up to the traffic
light, ready to turn left across the highway. The light is red, so you wait
patiently. At last, the cross traffic stops and the lights change. But instead
of a familiar green arrow, red arrow or solid green light, you’re presented
with a flashing yellow arrow. What to do? This wasn’t in driver’s ed, was it?
Oncoming traffic is still coming. But there’s also a line of impatient drivers
building behind you. Should you turn? Wait for another signal? Just push your
way through traffic?
As the
months drag on and the Carolina Southern Railroad continues to sit idle, our
hopes for a quick and easy solution have dimmed.
No magical
grant programs have surfaced to help the Conway-based railroad repair the
bridges that shut it down last spring. No buyers or investors have jumped at
the chance to sink their money into a struggling railroad. But with the
exhaustion of each simple or easy fix, we do believe the railroad is moving
closer to getting back on track.
Friday’s first editorial wishes Coast
RTA the best as they try to get an airport shuttle service up and running:
Our hat’s off to Coast RTA General
Manager Myers Rollins. Rather than focus on the loss of the regional bus
service’s $629,000 contract with Coastal
Carolina University
as a problem, he looked upon it as an opportunity to try something new.
Should federal
money collected for harbor maintenance be used to pay for harbor maintenance?
We sure think so:
As much as
pundits and politicians might like to say otherwise, there is almost nothing
clear-cut or straightforward about our nation’s spending problems. Managing a
nation of more than 300 million people with a federal budget now approaching $4
trillion a year is a monumental task of nuance, judgment calls and hard
decisions.
But sometimes
the intent of government budgeting seems so heart-breakingly simple that it’s
just all the more frustrating when that intent is ignored.
If some S.C. lawmakers have their
way, the meeting of S.C. 9 and S.C. 410 near Green Sea
will soon be the Lieutenant
John Ronald Floyd Intersection. It’s about time.
We often roll our eyes when we see
that S.C. lawmakers have decided to name another stretch of local asphalt, as
much of the time the honor is bestowed upon other politicians or influential
citizens. We’ve got nothing in particular against these folks and their
achievements, but they’ve certainly got the power, wealth and sway to ensure
that their legacies are remembered. Naming a road after these luminaries,
especially those still living who might yet embarrass themselves and the state,
is often simply an exercise in reciprocal back-scratching.
Tuesday’s editorial is on that most
perennial of subjects, a new highway to the area:
It’s easy to become cynical about the
prospects for any new highway to the Grand Strand. After all, we’ve been
promised one since the 1980s and have yet to see it materialize. But while
proponents of Interstate 73 – or any new road to our area – may seem locked in
limbo, there are a few bright spots on the horizon.
Sunday’s editorial urges lawmakers to
act sooner rather than later to address our state’s crumbling infrastructure:
South
Carolina’s roads are crumbling beneath us, and ignoring the problem
will not make it go away. Action is needed soon -- this year, this month --
because the cost to fix our roads rises with every day that passes. And it will
mean tough decisions that require substantially more funding, not just
leftovers and scraps that are found here and there.
Not convinced? Read through the report
on South Carolina’s road system put together for the state and issued in
December by a diverse group of transportation experts. It’s only 13 pages long,
but it sets out in stark detail the enormous challenges facing our state and
the almost total lack of solutions in the works to meet those challenges.
Thursday’s editorial attempts to
explain why privatizing the state’s school bus system really isn’t a great deal
for taxpayers or students:
If the state budget decreases and the
size of S.C. government shrinks, does it mean taxpayers are also benefiting and
paying less money? Not necessarily.
Take school bus privatization, which
Gov. Nikki Haley proposed once more in her 2013 executive budget, released Dec.
20.
It’s tempting to support the Georgetown County referendum to raise the county’s
sales tax. The money would pay for long-needed and overdue dredging of the Georgetown port, a
project we have long supported. And paving roads, building parks and expanding
libraries are all attractive ideas.
But we can’t quite bring ourselves to
get behind it. It’s not that we don’t like the projects. But we never managed
to get quite comfortable with the reasoning for the tax, the list of projects
or its length. And while we won’t think badly of Georgetown County voters if they do approve
it – and we’ll enjoy its results as much as anyone else – we can’t bring
ourselves to recommend a tax we don’t wholeheartedly support.
Tuesday’s editorial points out that
we’re in the process of picking a new DOT commissioner for our district and
urges legislators to get the right one:
The deadline to apply to become the
new 7th Congressional District’s first S.C. DOT commissioner comes on Friday,
and it brings with it some mixed feelings. On one hand, it’s a chance to get
one of our own in the seat and highlight local road priorities, getting them
higher up on the list for state and federal money. On the other hand, we’ve
long pushed for ending the current parochial system of a legislatively
appointed Department of Transportation Commission altogether, in favor of a
statewide approach that relies less heavily on the input of regional
commissioners interested primarily in furthering their own local needs.
Recent Comments