Officials meet to discuss anticipated port traffic

Transportation officials from South Carolina and Georgia are exploring several road projects to handle anticipated traffic and growth tied to a planned shipping terminal on the Jasper County side of the Savannah River.

Representatives from the S.C. Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, the Georgia Department of Transportation, the Lowcountry Council of Governments, the

Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission, along with the S.C. State Ports Authority's vice president of terminal development and S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford's liaison on the project, Tom Davis,met June 26 to examine existing roads and the area surrounding the 1,518-acre site

targeted for the port.

Georgia and South Carolina kicked up the momentum for a

$450 million bi-state port on the Savannah River when both states signed an intergovernmental

agreement Jan. 27.

The port is expected to open between 2017 and 2020, said Bill Bethea Jr. of Hilton Head Island, vice chairman of the Joint Project Office that manages development, studies and logistics of the bi-state port.

If built, the port has the potential to affect highway traffic patterns throughout the Southeast, said Doug Hecox, a spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration.

"When you are talking about a port, it would invite a lot of traffic into the area that we'd have to take into account," he said.

At this point, the road projects are just ideas, and no cost estimates are available, officials said.

"(The projects) are very preliminary," said Mark Pleasant, S.C. DOT statewide planning chief. "At least (the meeting) begins to lay out some of those transportation options."

The possible improvements to connect the port to traffic veins include:

• A 5.8-mile access road from the port to U.S. 17.

• Widening 6.6 miles of U.S. 17.

• A bridge replacement crossing the Back River on U.S. 17.

• A 7.4-mile realignment of U.S. 17 and a port access road.

• A new interchange on Interstate 95 near Mile Marker 3.

• An extension of S.C. 170 and Ga. 25 to Jimmy DeLoach Parkway.