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WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Henry E. Brown, Jr. (SC), a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, welcomed H. B. “Buck” Limehouse Jr., Secretary of the South Carolina Department of Transportation, to a hearing before the Committee’s Highway and Transit Subcommittee. Limehouse testified at the hearing, conducted in preparation for the next highway bill, at the invitation of Congressman Brown.
Talk focused on the importance of connecting communities for passenger and freight movement, two important topics for the First District given the role tourism and the ports of Charleston and Georgetown play in the region’s economy. Congressman Brown has long been an advocate for these issues as he works to improve the District’s transportation connectivity.
During the hearing, both Brown and Limehouse discussed the potential of I-73 to serve as a model for enhancing the connections between communities that were bypassed during the initial development of the Interstate system more than 50 years ago. Presently, there are some 70 urbanized areas with populations greater than 50,000 people that have no direct connection to the Interstate, including Myrtle Beach. Congressman Brown highlighted this during the hearing:
“I talk often about the potential for I-73 to not just connect Myrtle Beach, which sees some 14 million tourists a year, to the Interstate system, but for the route to connect entire areas of the country together for the first time. While Myrtle Beach has grown because of its location on the coast, who knows what other communities along the I-73 as it goes north to the Canadian border is ready and waiting to prosper?”
Limehouse spoke in support of Brown’s goal during his testimony. The Secretary stressed the importance of partnerships in transportation, stating that “with a deficient highway trust fund, inequities of formulas in federal funding, and congestion of our main thoroughfares across the nation, we must rely on partnerships. These partnerships play a major role in resolving needs-based problems in a political environment.”
View photos from today’s hearing at http://brown.house.gov/list/hearing/sc01_brown/062408limehousetestimony.shtml . For more information about Congressman Brown’s policies on transportation and infrastructure, visit his website: http://brown.house.gov/Issues/transportation.html.
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