A bus that brings people 75 miles to work on Hilton Head lost its funding. Now what?
At 4:50 a.m. each day, a bus leaves from Colleton County destined for Hilton Head Island.
The bus carries 50 people, most of whom work on the island, for up to two hours as it winds through Walterboro, Hendersonville, Yemassee and Bluffton.
In the next month, those 50 people may be stuck without a way to get to work.
This summer, the Colleton County Council voted to cease funding for Route 320, which takes residents to Hilton Head Island. Palmetto Breeze, the Lowcountry mass transportation authority, has been serving Colleton since 1984 with help from federal, state and local grants.
“It doesn’t really benefit us to transport our people out of the community for work,” Colleton County Council member Art Williams told The Island Packet Monday. “It was hard for me to justify paying to have them transported out of the community to go to work, when I know several retail stores that have to literally close in the middle of the day because they don’t have any employees.”
The council voted in June to stop funding the route, and the change became effective July 1, according to Williams.
.jpg "Screenshot (305).jpg")
That sent Palmetto Breeze executive director Mary Lou Franzoni looking for money to keep the bus running until the end of peak season on Hilton Head. She found $12,000 to keep the bus route intact so the people who depend on it could get to work.
Town of Hilton Head Island Assistant Manager Josh Gruber told the town intergovernmental committee Monday that the route will continue running until Labor Day under that emergency funding.
Hilton Head pays about $187,000 to Palmetto Breeze each year for transportation services, Gruber said.
Council members on the committee agreed to invite Colleton and Palmetto Breeze officials to the next meeting to discuss how to move forward with full funding.
“Transportation is a significant part of our workforce development,” David Ames said. “I think the council ought to be pushing hard to have the regional transportation solution.”
Changes in the Colleton County economy
Williams said the county council in Colleton approved the cut in funding because “no one that was involved had ever come before council to express why they thought it was important for us to continue to fund it.”
The council meetings happen on Tuesdays at 6 p.m. Route 320 bus leaves Hilton Head Island just before 5 p.m. and returns to the last stop on the route at 7:30 p.m.
The county council’s decision stems in part from a new economic situation in Colleton, according to Williams.
“Once upon a time Colleton did not have any industries in the community, so it was wise then for us to support” the bus route, he said. “Now, since we do have low unemployment, we prefer having them to work within our county.”
Since the original vote, Williams said several people have come forward to share how their lives will be affected by the loss of the bus route to work.
“Many of them had been working in the Beaufort, Bluffton, Hilton Head area for 25 or 30 years or more. It’s going to impact some of their retirement,” Williams said. “We don’t want to pull the rug out from under them because many of them don’t have transportation to get here on their own.”
The council has decided to discuss funding the route for another year at the Sept 10. meeting.
This story was originally published August 6, 2019 at 4:45 AM.
