Greenville Bankruptcy & Bill To Taxpayer is Real Risk

The bankrupt toll road in South Carolina shows what can happen when drivers won’t pay tolls to travel the Garden Parkway. Down in Greenville, South Carolina’s nine year old Southern Connector toll road filed for bankruptcy because traffic never materialized as projected. Not only did South Carolina’s management company leave SC taxpayers holding the bag for $8.3 million, it didn’t have the money to issue paychecks to its employees, much less make the payments on the $200 million note. When the 16 mile road opened in 2001, it was supposed to have 21,000 cars a day, but less than 7,500 were willing to pay the $2.50 toll. The company that estimated traffic for the Greenville road is the same company that is estimating demand for the toll road to no where.

There are a million reasons why the toll road to no where is bad business. Start with the price tag for the twenty two mile toll road to no where. With the construction price as high as it is, tolls will cost between $2.20 and $4.40, a lot more than the SC toll road. How many Gaston County commuters do you know who can fork out nearly ten bucks a day (over $2200 a year) to drive to and from work? Like the Southern Connector, promoters are counting on the back country Garden Parkway to stimulate new development. When they say “stimulate new development,” in reality that means they are just making up the traffic numbers. Let’s face it. People in North and South Carolina will not pay tolls to ride on a road when they are already paying taxes for roads. That’s the way we grew up and that’s the way we’re going to be.