Demand Senate vote and needed changes at state DOT

Leaders in the Senate seem determined to keep you stuck in traffic.

They also seem determined to keep a system in place that has squandered millions of dollars simply so that they can maintain control of your money.

I believe it's time for motorist and taxpayer alike to rightly vent outrage at the mounting congestion and diminished efficiency, safety and accountability they are required to put up with simply because some senior senators like it the way it is.

In looking at the statistics that accompany our DOT system it almost seems the Senate is now having a contest to see how far disconnected they can be from the public on the need for reform. Consider the facts:

Two years ago a bill passed that adds $85 million to DOT. This year, the House passed another proposal to add yet another $300 million over five years. But even before this, South Carolina spent well above the average of what other Southeastern states spent on their road systems, without getting a road system well above what is found in other Southeastern states.

Despite the money spent, South Carolina ranks fifth in the nation in road deaths per 100 million vehicle miles.

The growth in administrative costs of running our DOT is double the Southeastern average and triple the national average. This may be tied to some of the abuses that were highlighted in the recent DOT audit that chronicled highway commissioners hiring daughters and nephews, a past commissioner being paid over $100,000 to help write letters, and a strikingly common theme in direct bloodlines running between commissioners themselves and lawmakers, from fathers to sons-in-law.

That DOT report also identified an immediate $60 million thrown away with things like over-payment on contracts and purposeful manipulation of account balances. It was not able to show the big waste that comes with roads that never should have been built, but were built because someone was close to one of the folks with power. The costs to the rest of us are incalculable because who can put a price on the meetings we miss because we were stuck in traffic? Who can put a price on time you couldn't spend with a loved one?

The quality of life and special environment of our state that attracts so many to South Carolina is needlessly sacrificed when roads don't go to where the needs exist.

The Greenville News has done some groundbreaking investigative reporting uncovering abuse at the DOT, and every editorial page in the state has written on the need for reform. Amazingly, the commissioners, some who are now saying the status quo is good, seem not to be reading any of this and are some of the same gentlemen who took a unanimous vote of confidence in the past director just before she resigned in light of the Legislative Audit's findings.

I could chronicle more faults in our system, but you get my point. Our system is broken by its very design. There are some very good people at DOT, but the things our political system asks them to do is a combination of wrong and tragic. Boiled down, our DOT is designed to look only at pieces of South Carolina rather than the whole, which is why we end up in this rather bizarre situation of having the fourth largest state road system in the country. We have all been on those beautiful four lane roads from one very quiet spot in our state to some other very quiet spot in our state. For our state to make the most of our roadway dollars we can't keep doing that simply because some elder senator says it must be so and because of its implications for someone sitting in traffic elsewhere in our state.

To protect people on the road, the taxpayer and our state's great natural beauty, I join with scores of South Carolinians and DOT reformers like Rep. Annette Young and Sens. Greg Ryberg and Larry Grooms in believing we need change.

We need a statewide perspective at the DOT commission. We need building projects objectively prioritized so we build roads where the needs are most pressing, and we need a director with real oversight powers appointed by the executive branch. A statewide perspective has been proven to work in the other forty-seven states that tie the DOT back to the executive branch.

To do any of this means you have to hold your senator accountable this week. It means demanding a vote and demanding change and not falling prey to the blockades some in the Senate like to erect to avoid change and personal accountability. Change won't happen without your voice, and for those of us in this battle for change, there is no greater chorus we would like to hear than the music of your voices. Please join us.

Mark Sanford is the governor of South Carolina.