Highway Facts

Did you know?

• More pedestrians are killed each year on SC roads than vehicular deaths on our Interstates.
• About 85% of all crashes occur on primary and secondary roads, not on interstates.
• Nearly one-third of South Carolina's primary and interstate highways are now in poor or mediocre condition.
• Approximately half of our secondary roads are in poor or mediocre condition.
• 1 out of every 5 bridges in the state is considered deficient.
• South Carolina has the 4th largest state-maintained highway system in the nation. Nationally, only 19% of all highways are under state ownership. In South Carolina, 63% of all highways are under state ownership.
• South Carolina taxpayers contribute 43% less annual state source revenue per capita ($152) than the national per capita average ($267). For every dollar the average American contributes in recurring state-source highway dollars, the average South Carolinian contributes 57 cents. The term "recurring" means user fees, not bonds (which are repaid with recurring revenue).
  [Source: Recurring state-source revenue sources extracted from FHWA Highway Statistics 2010, Table SF-1]
• If a person drives 15,000 miles a year and gets 20 miles per gallon, he/she will pay $120 in SC motor fuel user fees annually. This is enough to resurface about 7 feet of one lane on the average secondary road.
• Federal funds are limited in how they can be used. They generally cannot be used for routine maintenance and must be used on roads that contribute significantly toward interstate commerce.
• Approximately 50% of state highway system is NOT eligible for federal funding.
• SCDOT's primary source of revenues is the state and federal motor fuel user fee (on average, more than 90%). It does not grow with inflation. Due largely to the national economic recession in 2008, revenues have fallen and only toward the end of FY'12 did they recover to 2008 levels.
• Nearly all other states substantially augment their Highway Programs with other dedicated non-fuel tax revenues.
• The state motor fuel user fee has been 16¢ per gallon since 1987. This is the 4th lowest in the nation. It has remained flat while the Consumer Price Index has grown 105% and traffic has grown 51%.
• Unlike the state sales tax, when gas prices go up, fuel revenues tend to go down. Improved fuel efficiency also causes fuel user fee collections per mile to drop (21% reduction in motor fuel user fee collections per mile driven between 1987 and 2011).