After uncertain summer, commuter bus to Hilton Head will continue running (for now)

Bus riders on Route 320 from Colleton County to Hilton Head Island are sleeping easier these days.

One reason is because the bus now is a smaller, 22-seat coach with much more comfortable seats, according to one rider.

But they’re also at ease because their two-hour ride to work will continue after Labor Day weekend.

About 50 Colleton County residents found out in June that the money paying for the bus would run out after the holiday weekend. After Colleton County Council denied the $27,000 local match needed to pay for the bus’ operation in the upcoming year, passengers scurried to find information about the future of their 75-mile ride to work.

Palmetto Breeze executive director Mary Lou Franzoni said Wednesday that the bus agency has found funding until summer 2020.

But the fix is temporary.

Franzoni said the route will again be in peril next year because Colleton County will have to find the money.

The Lowcountry doesn’t have a designated funding source for its transportation authority, Franzoni said, so Palmetto Breeze is dependent on grants that she hopes the local governments match each year.

“It starts all over again with the budget process. We’ll be right back asking for local funding again,” she said of next year, when Palmetto Breeze will ask for around $850,000 in local matches from the five counties it serves.

She said those matches come from the general fund in each county — where transportation needs have to compete with institutions such as fire departments, libraries and even Little League teams.

For at least the next 10 months though, the bus will drive daily between Ruffin in Colleton County to Hilton Head.

Franzoni said that’s in part due to two private donations from employers on Hilton Head — although she wouldn’t say which ones contributed.

‘Those employees count’

The bus will also keep running because Palmetto Breeze switched to smaller bus for Route 320 to save money. Although 30-year rider Audrey Stephens said it’s more comfortable, it has 22 seats instead of the 50-seat coach bus she once rode every day.

Franzoni said Palmetto Breeze counted the number of riders twice before making the switch. One day, there were 11 riders. Another day, there were 17.

“We switched that large bus to a smaller bus,” Franzoni said. “For each of those employers, those employees count.”

Stephens, who has been riding the bus for 30 years, said all riders fit on the smaller bus for now. But by next summer, she said she “really doubts” there will be enough seats for everyone.

The Colleton County Council is set once again to discuss paying for the commuter route at 6 p.m. Sept. 10.

Since that’s an hour before the bus gets back to Walterboro, where Stephens lives, she and about nine others have taken the day off to attend the meeting and beg for a more permanent solution.

“They’ve got to miss a day at work for all this stuff here,” Stephens said. “We’ve got some people who are quiet, but when it comes down to the food that’s on their table and a place to stay, they speak up.”

“And they can’t stop the bus,” she added. “That can’t happen.”

This story was originally published August 29, 2019 at 3:30 AM.