What’s next for the $290M plan to replace the Hilton Head bridges? Here’s a timeline
Nearly four months ago, the S.C. Department of Transportation released its favored plan for the U.S. 278 corridor project after years of studies, public meetings and criticism.
What’s next on the schedule for the sprawling, $290 million project, which calls for the construction of a new six-lane bridge between Bluffton and Jenkins Island?
Pete Poore, an SCDOT spokesman, in a statement wrote that the agency likely will respond to residents’ written public comments about U.S. 278 before the end of 2021. The comments were submitted to SCDOT this past summer.
The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette newspapers have filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the 500 or so comments and determine how many people formally objected to the state’s contentious plan.
Based on the comments and community’s feedback, SCDOT will craft an updated version of its U.S. 278 plan, which is called a “preferred alternative,” and later submit it to the Federal Highway Administration, or FHWA, said Jared Fralix, assistant Beaufort County administrator, in an interview.
SCDOT, Poore wrote, expects to have that updated plan ready by early 2022. The plan will be released to the public after it’s first shared with “project partners” and the FHWA, he wrote.
The state is seeking a Finding of No Significant Impact from the federal government — a document that explains how a construction project will not significantly impact the environment — so that it does not have to complete a time-consuming environmental impact statement for the U.S. 278 plan.
“A significant amount of review and coordination is taking place in reaction to comments received directly by the public, locally elected officials and other stakeholders,” Poore wrote.
SCDOT, the county and town of Hilton Head Island recently met to discuss U.S. 278 after the newspapers reported that the island’s Town Council cannot directly veto the proposal to build a new six-lane bridge, according to the state.
‘Just a little bit’
Fralix in October said he believes SCDOT will “modify the (original) plan just a little bit.”
That’s partly because SCDOT, he said, submitted the initial version of its preferred alternative to FHWA officials earlier this year to receive a preliminary go-ahead on the project.
Because the preferred alternative has already set a high bar in the eyes of the FHWA, he said, there must be a strong justification to change a significant component of the plan in the coming months.
The FHWA did not immediately respond to a phone message Monday.
The state, Poore wrote, believes it will receive an approved Finding of No Significant Impact in June 2022.
That would be a blow to local critics of the preferred alternative, who have argued that SCDOT should go back to the drawing board because, among other things, its scope of study for the project was too limited.
What does this all mean?
The FHWA, Fralix said, considers community input when reviewing highway projects.
For example, he said, it’s clear that many Hilton Head residents are opposed to SCDOT’s plan to eliminate left turns at the Squire Pope Road-U.S. 278 and Spanish Wells-Wild Horse roads intersections.
MKSK, a Greenville-based land planning firm that the town hired to suggest tweaks to SCDOT’s proposal, recently countered the state, arguing that transportation officials should maintain those left turns. (A 5-2 majority of Town Council members in October endorsed several recommendations from MKSK.)
The state now is examining MKSK’s intersection ideas, Fralix said. Poore confirmed that’s the case.
But will the firm’s suggestions ultimately be incorporated into the updated preferred alternative that will be sent to the FHWA?
That’s still unknown.
MKSK also has recommended that SCDOT build two new bridges instead of one, with three lanes of traffic on each structure, and it wants the state to curtail some right-of-way acquisition in the historic Stoney community.
“It’s a balance between impacts and public comments,” Fralix said.
State Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, in a previous statement wrote that if the town “requests changes, even as to areas of the project outside its municipal limits, they must be received, considered, and respected by the SCDOT; otherwise, the project is not going to move forward.”
Davis, one of 46 state senators, has represented Beaufort and Jasper counties in the Senate for a dozen years.
Shawn Colin, senior adviser to Hilton Head’s town manager, did not respond to a phone message last week. Neither did Craig Winn, the SCDOT project manager.
The state hopes to begin construction on the project in late 2023 or early 2024.
This story was originally published November 2, 2021 at 4:30 AM.
