Shelter Cove road work in full swing on Hilton Head. What will happen to the Live Oaks?
A five-month-long construction project in Hilton Head Island’s Shelter Cove corridor is underway, which will change the flow of traffic accessing one of the most popular shopping and dining centers on the island.
But one thing the construction won’t really change: the Live Oak canopy that’s signature to the mid-island corridor.
The Town of Hilton Head Island engineers and arborists have developed a plan that protects every Live Oak in the corridor, traffic engineer Darrin Shoemaker told The Island Packet on Monday.
“It’s just a very visually pleasing canopy of Live Oaks over the road, and we want to disturb it as little as possible,” Shoemaker said.
Of the dozens of trees in the median between the north and southbound lanes, just six tree limbs are at risk of being lost during construction so drivers will be able to see the new traffic lights to be installed. Of those, three limbs are considered “significant,” or larger than six inches in diameter, Shoemaker said.
The corridor runs from the intersection of Queens Folly Road and King Neptune Way with U.S. 278 near Palmetto Dunes north to Shelter Cove Lane and U.S. 278 near the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, and includes Shelter Cove Towne Centre and the Whole Foods strip mall.
The road construction was supposed to start in September 2019, but it began four months late, in January.
Town engineer Jeff Buckalew said the project was delayed because the town needed permits from the S.C. Department of Transportation, which owns U.S. 278. The town redesigned the area several times and solicited feedback from SCDOT, he said.
Construction was also delayed because easements acquired for privately owned properties took longer than expected.
“A September start would have given us a far greater cushion to be done by summer, but we still have that same goal and intend to be done by the end of May,” he said.
The $1.45 million project is scheduled to be complete by the end of May, Buckalew said. The budget for the project, paid for with hospitality taxes, has increased from the original estimates of around $1 million.
The project is supposed to make the corridor safer and eliminate two acceleration lanes that have been called too short to match the speed of oncoming traffic.
Over 100 crashes have been documented in the Shelter Cove corridor since 2015, according to crash data from the Town of Hilton Head Island. Four were fatal.
Jose Ruben Silvestre López-Pérez, 53, died Jan. 25 when his car was struck by an oncoming vehicle when he was turning onto U.S. 278 near the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
- Norman McNeill, 77, was struck June 7, 2019, by an oncoming pickup truck that failed to yield near Hickory Tavern. He died of his injuries two weeks later.
Deweese Weaver, 78, was struck and killed by a motorist as she was walking her bike across the street on Feb. 16, 2017. Her family has sued the driver of the car that hit her, claiming negligence.
Jerome Stewart, 43, died after he lost control of his vehicle and struck a tree on March 15, 2014.
To preserve as many trees as possible, Shoemaker said, the northbound or off-island lanes of U.S. 278 will be widened to the right of the roadway closer to Palmetto Dunes. At the end of the corridor, lanes will shift back to the existing alignment.
“By shifting the through lanes away from the tree canopy, it’s going to be a lot easier to see the signals without impacting the tree canopy,” he said.
Here’s how the intersections will change:
New traffic signal at Sheriff’s Office
A traffic signal will be added at the intersection and will allow turning cars to use official turn lanes.
The acceleration lane on U.S. 278 that forces drivers leaving the Sheriff’s Office to speed up to match traffic on the 45-mph highway will be eliminated.
The improvements also include widening Shelter Cove Lane in front of the Sheriff’s Office to add a right-turn lane. Construction on this intersection is scheduled to be finished by the end of this month.
Shelter Cove Towne Centre intersection
The turning lanes at the Shelter Cove entrance near Hickory Tavern and Kroger will be revamped and stop traffic in both directions with a traffic signal. Currently, northbound traffic does not stop at the entrance, and an acceleration lane forces drivers leaving Shelter Cove to match the oncoming traffic.
The new intersection includes:
- Adding double-left turn lanes for cars leaving Shelter Cove Towne Centre near Hickory Tavern.
- Stopping northbound traffic on U.S. 278 at a traffic signal to allow drivers at the shopping center to turn left onto the highway.
- Deleting the acceleration lane, which town traffic engineer Darrin Shoemaker called “too short” for existing traffic to speed up on time.
- Adding a signalized pedestrian crosswalk to get people from the town pathway on northbound U.S. 278 to the Shelter Cove entrance.
Construction on this intersection is scheduled for February to March.
Palmetto Dunes entrance
The entrance to Palmetto Dunes from U.S. 278 also needs an overhaul. The intersection at Queens Folly Road, King Neptune Way and U.S. 278 is on the south end of the Shelter Cove corridor.
The plan for this intersection includes:
- Adding two left turn lanes leaving Palmetto Dunes and two left turn lanes leaving the Shelter Cove marina.
- Adding left turn arrow signals so drivers turning onto U.S. 278 do not have to yield to oncoming traffic.
- Realigning turns from Palmetto Dunes so they match up with the through lanes from King Neptune Way.
Construction on this intersection is scheduled to be complete by the end of March.
New pathway near Shelter Cove
The town has also added a new multi-use pathway from Hickory Tavern to the Sheriff’s Office along the southbound lanes of U.S. 278.
Prior to the project, that segment of the Shelter Cove area was the only part of the corridor missing a pathway.
