Construction on popular Hilton Head road seems ‘stalled.’ What’s really happening?
A construction project on a popular Hilton Head Island road at the base of the Cross Island Bridge is not done... yet.
Although road work signs pepper the area around Palmetto Bay Road, no construction crews are in sight.
New black pavement runs down most of the road, but the project’s manager with the S.C. Department of Transportation said it’s still missing one more layer of asphalt and permanent reflective road markings, which are supposed to be complete by April 1. SCDOT says the project has been dormant for weeks due to weather concerns.
Residents say they like the new look of the road, but worry that until complete, the edges — which do not match the surrounding grade — will clip the tires of cars or motorcycles coming off the Cross Island Parkway at 45 mph.
“You’ve got a big seam going down the road where the two pieces of blacktop meet,” island resident Tom Egerton told The Island Packet. “And it’s not level with the island (median), which is an indicator it’s not done.”
Egerton, who drives the road nearly every day, said the project has appeared “stalled” in recent weeks. He said he has not seen crews working on the road nor any big changes.
The project will resurface a long section of the popular road from the base of the Cross Island Bridge to just before the Sea Pines Circle. The contractor on the project is Preferred Materials, a firm based in Savannah. Jeff Andrews, the operations manager for the firm, declined Tuesday to comment on the project.
Drivers of the south-end corridor are accustomed to road project delays.
Just a few miles closer to the beach, Pope Avenue was recently repaved by a different contractor, Quality Enterprises, after a feud with the town over rippled pavement.
Why the delay on Palmetto Bay Road?
Ashar Saeed, SCDOT’s resident construction engineer in charge of the project, said the lapse in work on Palmetto Bay Road is due to unpredictable weather that makes laying asphalt more difficult.
“The main reason is the restrictions on the weather,” he said Wednesday. “They have to put asphalt down at certain temperature.”
He said crews can’t lay asphalt if, among other things, the temperature isn’t consistently 50 degrees or higher. That means crews can rarely work between Dec. 15 and early spring.
This weekend’s cold spell, where the temperature is expected to drop 15 degrees between Thursday and Friday on Hilton Head, is likely to postpone construction again.
But how do other states, particularly those in the north, get any construction done with asphalt temperature requirements?
A Michigan-based paving company, B&E Coating Services LLC, wrote in a blog post on its website that cold-weather paving jobs are possible as long as the ground is not frozen.
“In general, it is best to hold off on paving projects until we have gotten through the winter. However, we can pave in the winter as long as weather conditions are dry and the ground isn’t frozen. In other words, cold weather asphalt paving can be done during mild winters or in late fall.”
In Massachusetts, T&B Landscape suggests laying asphalt in late spring and summertime.
“Yes, construction crews can be seen paving roads, parking lots and driveways throughout the year, but there is definitely a right time and a wrong time of the year to install a new asphalt driveway,” according to a post on the company’s website. “The best temperature for paving asphalt is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit.”
Saeed said commercial contractors in other states may use a different blend of materials to make asphalt more adaptable to different temperatures.
However, he said the asphalt used in South Carolina is specific to our climate.
What’s next?
The 10-day forecast on Hilton Head seems to be more promising, and Saeed said construction crews from Preferred Materials plan to be on-site finishing the work later next week.
Although the project may be moving forward again, some complain that it still won’t fix the road.
“The worst potholes on the entire road are two feet (beyond) the sign that says ‘end of road work,’” Egerton said. “I laugh every time I bump through them.”
