$1M independent traffic study for Hilton Head’s US 278 project in works. What we know
If you’ve ever driven west on U.S. 278 during the afternoon rush hour on Hilton Head Island, you’ve probably been stuck in traffic between the Spanish Wells Road intersection and the Gumtree Road intersection.
It’s a well-known congestion point for commuters on the highway.
But as part of the ongoing U.S. 278 corridor project — a sprawling plan to reshape Hilton Head’s single entry and exit point — the S.C. Department of Transportation has limited its traffic simulations to a section of U.S. 278 between the Moss Creek Drive area in Bluffton and the start of the Cross Island Parkway on Hilton Head.
The study area has not included the Gumtree Road intersection, which is just east of the beginning of the Cross Island Parkway.
Critics of the project have long argued that because of the agency’s limited study area, SCDOT’s current plan for the corridor is incomplete since it fails to take into account congestion near the Gumtree Road intersection.
That concern and others like it have filled local officials’ email inboxes over the past year.
But in recent days, state Sen. Tom Davis has successfully pushed SCDOT and Beaufort County to address residents’ outstanding complaints about the transportation agency’s previous traffic analysis, arguing that now is the time for additional “due diligence” before the design phase of the $290 million project kicks off.
The details are still being worked out, but Beaufort County plans to pay a third-party firm to conduct an independent “end-to-end analysis” of traffic simulations between the Moss Creek Drive intersection and the Gumtree Road intersection, county spokesman Chris Ophardt confirmed Friday.
Where will the money come from?
“Source TBD (general fund or impact fees),” Ophardt wrote in a statement.
The study could cost an estimated $1 million and could last six months, Davis said. (The county does not expect the review to take that long, according to Ophardt, who also confirmed that the current cost estimate is $1 million.)
“It’s important that this company that does the end-to-end simulation,” Davis said, “be seen as an honest broker, be seen as independent, be seen as an entity that is going to give the data and not somehow try to work within some sort of preexisting constraints or try to reach a preexisting outcome.
“Part of this process is to instill public confidence in what’s going on, and rightly or wrongly, there’s some perception, or some feelings by some, that there hasn’t been this independent analysis.”
Those concerns can be traced back to 2020, when a consultant was hired by Beaufort County and the town of Hilton Head to review SCDOT’s plans for the U.S. 278 corridor project, but residents at the time worried that the $134,732 review would not be independent because the firm, HDR, had previously worked regularly with the county and SCDOT.
(HDR in its final report, which was presented to the Hilton Head Town Council in May 2021, supported six lanes of traffic throughout the corridor, according to previous reporting from The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.)
“I don’t mean to denigrate HDR and say they aren’t professional, and I’m not saying that they didn’t do a good job,” Davis said in an interview Wednesday. “But again, community buy-in and community acceptance of this is critically important.”
Davis said he has urged County Administrator Eric Greenway to “be very transparent” about the new independent study by compiling a list of possible companies that could conduct the review, before then sharing that list with various citizens groups and the town for input.
The Coalition of Island Neighbors, or COIN, and a group of residents led by former County Council member Steve Baer, among others, have vocally protested SCDOT’s current plan for the project. Baer and his group have long expressed concerns about the Gumtree Road intersection being outside of SCDOT’s study area.
“The Independent Review is our last chance to get a sound, scientifically based plan that addresses long lingering questions, identifies all the needed parts and costs, avoids mistakes, and possibly exposes new opportunities,” Baer wrote in a letter Monday to the County Council. “We should all seize on this as a wonderful opportunity.”
Baer in an interview Friday added that he thinks graduate programs that are focused on transportation studies at colleges, such as programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, would jump at the opportunity to conduct the new U.S. 278 review.
Davis, meanwhile, said that even if the county retains the firm for the new study, he envisions that “they (the company) owe the duty to the town of Hilton Head.”
Will the project be delayed?
Jared Fralix, assistant county administrator, previously said the U.S. 278 project needed to receive a Finding of No Significant Impact, or FONSI, this summer from the Federal Highway Administration to remain on schedule. And Ophardt previously wrote that the county planned to submit its FONSI request by the end of May.
When asked this week whether the new independent review will delay the county’s FONSI request, Ophardt wrote Thursday that, “It all depends on when the study starts and concludes, but there may be a delay.”
The FONSI issue is important because the county has an agreement with the S.C. Transportation Infrastructure Bank, or SCTIB, that says if the project is not completed by Dec. 31, 2028, the county will have to reimburse the SCTIB for the infrastructure bank’s prior financial assistance on the project. (The county has secured $120 million in SCTIB grant funds for the project.)
Fralix has worried that a project delay could jeopardize those funds.
But Davis said the new study will not “materially delay things at all” and that he recently spoke with SCDOT Secretary Christy Hall about the matter.
“This additional diligence that we’re doing with the simulation in no way jeopardizes that SCTIB funding. She told me that,” Davis said.
“Look, if I thought the county and the town were doing things that were dilatory or not necessary or were simply for purposes of delay, and not for legitimately getting good data, I’d be the first to say so,” Davis said. “I mean, that is not what’s occurring here. Nor is it being perceived that way by the DOT or the SCTIB. They understand that the town and the county (are) being cautious.”
The state senator in a letter last week to Greenway and Hilton Head Town Manager Marc Orlando wrote that Hall can explain to the SCTIB chair “what’s transpiring.”
The SCDOT did not immediately respond this week to detailed questions about the independent study. Fralix referred a reporter to Ophardt, the county spokesman, for comment on the issue.
“If there is a significant group of people who feel like they have not been heard, or feel like the relevant data hasn’t been secured or analyzed (for the project), and there’s an opportunity now ... to address those concerns, every effort ought to be made to do that,” Davis said.
What about the bridge debate?
The Beaufort County Council and Hilton Head Town Council have recently been debating over whether SCDOT should build one new six-lane bridge or two new three-lane bridges between Bluffton and Jenkins Island as part of the project.
That matter, Davis said, is separate from his effort to get a new independent review of traffic simulations.
“I’m not outcome-oriented,” Davis said. “I’m agnostic in regard to design or those things. What I’m interested in is making sure the town and the county have the best data available.”
This story was originally published April 30, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
