Richland County transportation forum

[nxylas]

I attended the public meeting on the future of transportation in Richland County this morning. Short version: the county needs to levy a 1% sales tax in order to pay for $3 billion worth of improvements over the next 25 years. These improvements include road widenings and interchange reconstruction as well as more sidewalks, bike paths and other greenways; and an upgrade of the bus system from barely adequate to pretty decent, with buses every 15-20 minutes at peak times, longer service hours, and extensions to bus routes to cover more areas. Without this tax, the roads will remain as they are, but more gridlocked due to a projected 25% increase in population, and the bus system could be eliminated altogether. I urge everyone here who lives in Richland County to write to their county councillor and ask them to vote yes to getting this tax on the ballot in November. Of course if we do, then we'll have to deal with all these anti-tax types who want to use public services but don't want to pay for them. But that's another struggle for another day.

Details of future meetings can be found at: http://richlandonline.com/News/2008/TSC_Invite.asp

[SCDem]

1. Thank you for participating at the local level!

Thank you for participating at the local level. It is great that you are engaged at such a local level. Democrats and progressives need to focus on what they can do locally.

[nxylas]

2. You can view the preliminary recommendations here

http://www.rcgov.us/departments/CountyCouncil/Committees/Transportation%20Study%20Commission/Documents/TSCPreliminaryRecommendations.pdf