FROM THE CHAIRMAN: MR. CLARKE DeHART
South Carolina maintains an extensive highway, road and bridge system that plays a vital role in our state’s economic growth and prosperity. This system allows the Port of Charleston to compete with other ports on the Eastern seaboard in terms of export and import cargo activity; it provides tourists with a conduit to our beautiful vacation destinations, as well as giving our state’s businesses a way to move products and resources to market. Finally, our road system provides the citizens of South Carolina the mobility to take their children to school, get to work, and move about almost effortlessly. Sadly, this important investment is rapidly deteriorating and lacks the capacity to adequately handle future growth.
South Carolina is now at a crossroads and there are few issues that demand our individual attention and are as important to all citizens of South Carolina as our future economic health and prosperity. However, in a fiercely competitive global economy, achieving our goals becomes even more challenging. If we are to be successful in our efforts to grow and compete for industry and jobs in today’s strained economy, South Carolina must invest in and maintain our state’s highway, road and bridge infrastructure system.
There will be many obstacles along the way and funding no doubt will be paramount. No one wants to ask the citizens of South Carolina for more money, but our state can no longer rely solely on an antiquated means of funding our infrastructure. We are truly experiencing a system breakdown as a result of the state’s resistance to make hard choices in the way it funds our highways, roads and bridges. Alternate sources of funding are essential to the future well-being of our state’s highways. We will have to somehow find a larger, dedicated income stream to address the funding crisis. South Carolina cannot afford to let our highway infrastructure become obsolete. Our road system is the backbone of our state’s economy and without it being maintained and expanded for growth our economy will greatly suffer.
The mission of The South Carolina Alliance to Fix Our Roads is to facilitate meeting the needs of a safe, efficient, and adequate road system throughout South Carolina. It is my privilege to serve as the 2010 Chairman of SC FOR.
J. Clarke DeHart
Vice President
C. R. Jackson, Inc.