COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) is asking for your feedback on its new statewide rail plan that was approved last week.
Officials say the plan looks at trends, needs and issues that will impact passenger and freight travel over the next 20 years.
"We're not the only ones using rail across the state. The public uses all of that and we're here to serve the public, so that's why it's important to us," SCDOT representative Hannah Robinson said. "We want to make sure that whatever we're doing aligns with the public interest. So if there's public interest for increasing a certain thing in the rail plan or decreasing something, we're obviously going to look into that if the public input is enough to justify it."
Some of the needs listed in the plan include age of the rail infrastructure, at-grade crossings, capacity and state funding.
Within the plan, SCDOT said as of last year, the state's rail system totals over 2,500 miles with eight daily trains running north and south over four routes.
"What this rail plan is essentially is a large scale plan that sets out general large goals that we want to accomplish with rail in the state, and then from that plan, then that’s how we come up with our investments that we make statewide and how federal investments are made for rail in the state," Robinson said.
The plan is just over 200 pages long. Robinson said after the comment period ends, DOT will send the plan to the Federal Rail Administration next week for approval. Then final changes will be made if needed, before the plan is then put into place.
You can find both the plan itself and directions for submitting feedback on SCDOT's website.
If you'd like to leave a comment, make sure you do so before the deadline at 5 p.m. on Saturday, December 14, 2024.