Goodbye to Cross Island Parkway toll booths on Hilton Head. Demolition timeline set
The S.C. Department of Transportation has released a timeline for the demolition of the Cross Island Parkway toll booths.
Pete Poore, an agency spokesman, confirmed Wednesday that the work is expected to begin in March and end in May.
The Savannah-based asphalt contractor APAC Atlantic Inc. will have 60 days after the start of the project to remove the toll facilities and restripe the area’s travel lanes, Poore wrote in a statement.
The contractor and SCDOT plan to limit their work to evening hours, according to the town of Hilton Head Island.
There will be no lane closures during the day or on federal or state holidays. There also will be no lane closures between April 8 and April 20 to prevent disruptions during this year’s RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing golf tournament in Sea Pines.
SCDOT in January awarded APAC Atlantic Inc. a $12.7 million contract to complete the project, state records show.
The project also will include “pavement removal, pavement reconstruction and resurfacing, and signage and striping along the parkway and ramps” from U.S. 278 Business to the Charles E. Fraser Bridge, the town recently announced.
This additional work is expected to be completed by the end of 2022.
The Cross Island Parkway officially dropped its $1.25 fare on Hilton Head last summer. The tolls ended a few days before the Fourth of July.
The 7.5-mile parkway is a common route for people who live or work on the island’s south end. Tolls were first collected on the parkway in 1998 to repay bonds that were issued to build the road, among other things.
The tolls were dropped from mid-March to mid-June in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Town leaders, including former Town Manager Steve Riley, discussed trying to drop the tolls permanently following that closure.
But Riley later said, “It quickly became apparent that we would have to find the money (to pay off the bridge), and that wasn’t in the cards for us.”
When previously asked how SCDOT could stay on schedule and drop the Cross Island Parkway’s tolls in 2021, even after the three-month closure in 2020, an agency official said the project’s bond maturity date was set and, by state law, that’s when toll collections had to end, regardless of COVID-19 and hurricane evacuation toll suspensions.
This story was originally published February 10, 2022 at 11:36 AM.
