Beaufort Co. revises $75M Ribaut Rd. fix but many early votes on new tax are already in
Thousands of Beaufort County voters have already cast early ballots and while others prepare to head to the polls in a matter of days, one of the biggest decisions they will make is approving or denying a 1 percent sales tax increase to improve local roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects.
It may be as simple and innocuous as “the penny sales tax” but the total burden on county shoppers is expected to be $950 million.
The wrinkle is, county voters are being asked to approve the referendum while details of one of the included projects, representing more than 8% of the total, remains swirling in uncertainty about what it will look like when completed.
The project at the heart of the last-minute discussion is the Reimagine Ribaut Road changes in Port Royal and Beaufort, which represents $75 million of the $950 million being sought through a penny tax. On Friday, Beaufort County leaders announced new design options for parts of the project in response to Beaufort residents who criticized it when it was first proposed a year-and-a-half ago.
A meeting to explain the latest changes has been called for 5:30 p.m. Friday at the Technical College of the Lowcountry less than two weeks before the traditional election day Nov. 5 when the sales tax question is on the ballot.
One expert said voters should be aware that they won’t have all of the design details of the projects in the $950 million referendum because most are a long way from the design stage even though funding is being sought Nov. 5. That the projects are included in the referendum is a recognition that there is a problem that needs addressing.
“And how they should be fixed, to me, in all most all cases, is an open question,” said Port Royal’s Dean Moss, chairman of the Citizen Transportation Advisory Committee, which studied the referendum projects for the county.
Changes announced
The Ribaut Road project is farther along than most of the projects with the county first seeking public comment in April 2023.
The purpose of Friday’s open house is for residents to review updated design alternatives, share thoughts and concerns, learn more about project status and future steps, the county said.
Reducing traffic lanes idea has been scuttled
Jared Fralix, the assistant county administrator-engineering, said that county officials wanted residents to know about the new design options ahead of the referendum. The county especially wanted residents to know that an initial proposal to reduce traffic lanes from 4 to 3 between the Technical College of the Lowcountry to Depot Road “is not what we’re going with.”
That’s a significant development for Beaufort residents. When the Ribaut Road improvements first came out last year, Beaufort residents rose up to complain about the lane reduction, which was billed as a “traffic calming” measure.
Now, based on that feedback, Beaufort County is proposing changes it hopes will make the project more palatable. “There will be alternatives that don’t have a lane reduction,” Fralix said.
The “Reimagine Ribaut” project is proposed to address the problems of the overworked road used by some 32,000 commuters daily. The plan calls for road, intersection and pedestrian and bike path work along 5.5 miles from the Bell Bridge in Port Royal to Boundary Street in Beaufort to improve the road’s flow and to make it easier to drive and cross for pedestrians and bicyclists. Aesthetic upgrades to make it look better are part of it, too.
The major road in Beaufort and Port Royal not only connects those communities but also serves as one of the few access points for motorists to reach Lady’s Island. But like an outdated sewer line, traffic routinely backs up, leading to long lines of cars at major intersections especially during morning and evening commutes.
The $75 million earmarked for the work in the referendum should comfortably cover the costs of the entire Ribaut Road project, Fralix said.
“The goal all along has been to have a plan ready ahead of the referendum,” Fralix said.
Other noteworthy changes that will be discussed Friday involve new design alternatives for the busy Lady’s Island Drive-Ribaut Road intersection and changes for intersections where roundabouts were planned, Fralix said.
“This is us coming back with updates to the plans based on what we heard,” Fralix said.
No question that Ribaut Road needs improvements
Port Royal’s Moss says there’s no question Ribaut Road needs improvements.
Motorists trying to make a right turn onto Lady’s Island Drive, Moss noted, cause traffic to back up almost a half mile to Paris Avenue near Port Royal’s Old Village. Moss would like to see more pedestrian crossings on the road and power lines buried, which he says would not only make the road look better but also lessen the severity of power outages during hurricane season. If the project allows Ribaut to better and more safely carry the same amount of traffic while making it more attractive, Moss said, “You’ve made progress.”
But Moss, who supports the passage of the penny tax referendum, doesn’t think the Ribaut Road project should move forward until both the Beaufort and Port Royal councils approve it.
“That’s one of the reasons it was controversial,” Moss said. “Having this meeting Friday is good but I do think both the city and the town ought to basically say, ‘Let’s back off for a while and let’s spend some more time working on this problem.”
City of Beaufort is waiting for an update
Beaufort City Manager Scott Marshall said he doesn’t know what the city’s position on the Ribaut Road changes are because the county hasn’t shared them yet with the city.
As for the original proposal, there was “general dissatisfaction with the reduction from four lanes to three lanes” through Beaufort, Marshall said.
Beaufort County says it will continue to work with the city, town and Stantec Consulting Services, Inc., to create a master plan for improvements along the corridor.
Fralix acknowledged that residents have been upset about the project. But, he adds, “I feel like this is the most open process that we have utilized and we’re getting smashed for it.” He noted the county conducted an open house on the project before designs began to get feedback from the public and then came up with a design and held additional public meetings. The new iteration is a response to input from those meetings, he said.
The plan isn’t fully defined yet but that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with the process, Fralix said. It just means “this planning takes a while” no matter how it ends up being funded. The county said when the project was originally proposed that it would take multiple funding sources to get the job done.
“We were going to do this regardless whether there was a sales tax or not,” Fralix said.
This story was originally published October 25, 2024 at 9:00 AM.
