Letter to SC State Infrastructure Bank Board
Thank you for your support!
Below is a letter that our steering team just sent to the SC State Infrastructure Bank (SIB) Board. The SIB is the organization that will likely be called upon to provide additional funds for the misdirected Route 278 Corridor Project. The letter speaks for itself.
Our strongest ally will be the over 7100 names on our Petition. The more names we have, the more traction we will have with State and Federal officials.
Please encourage your friends and those on your mailing lists to sign the Petition at https://chng.it/gxXykZBv
Thank you
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Subject: Concerns with Beaufort County’s – US 278 Corridor Project
November 16, 2021
South Carolina Transportation Infrastructure Bank Board
955 Park Street
Suite 120B
Columbia, SC 29201
(Via email - Care of: Ms. Tami B. Reed, CFO - SCTIB ReedTB@SCDOT.org )
Dear Board Members:
It is likely that you will soon receive an update and additional funding request regarding Beaufort County’s Route 278 Corridor Project. That report will likely paint an optimistic picture of progress (in the opinion of a small number of local politicians.) We wish to inform you that this view is out-of-sync with the facts on the ground. Many local groups have mobilized against the current project’s direction, and over 7,100 Citizens have signed a Petition against it. We also understand that SCDOT has received about 500 comments on the plan, the great majority of which are in vehement opposition.
The issues summarized below have caused the project’s estimated cost to spiral from $240 million to $300 - $350 million or more. Yet, despite this, it cannot be demonstrated to an independent body that the project will meet its stated goals.
Thus, we suggest that before any more Taxpayer funding is provided, much greater Due Diligence is required by SIB as to the project’s viability and desirability. It is likely that when a final accounting is done, it will be discovered that SIB has significantly overspent to go down the wrong path.
Summary of Problem Areas
1 – Project Scope Incomplete – SCDOT’s project scope extends only to Spanish Wells Road, while Beaufort County’s extends even less – to Squire Pope Road. But most of the traffic flows causing congestion are to the Cross Island Parkway (CIP) and Local 278 near Gumtree Road. This leaves the planning and engineering of critical regions, including well-known merge, split, and congestion issues, outside of the planning scope. Adding these regions will raise the final cost of the plan and may cause a different plan to be superior. Yet the extension through the Gumtree intersection (and to the Cross Island Parkway) is totally essential if the project has any chance of achieving its goals.
2 – Intersection vs End-to End Analysis – It appears that SCDOT and various consultants hired by Beaufort County and Hilton Head Island studied one intersection at a time, and did NOT fully consider the compound impacts of multiple lights, intersections, merges, splits, U-turns, and possible speed limit changes throughout the entire route. Coupled with the Incomplete Scope of Item 1, it is thus impossible to determine the actual traffic flow of any one plan from Moss Creek to the Cross Island Parkway (CIP), nor to compare one end-to-end plan quantitatively and fairly with another.
3 – Inaccurate growth projections for Hilton Head Island – SCDOT based their rationale for the need for a six- to eleven-lane highway at the entrance to Hilton Head Island (a scale which we believe to be excessive and unnecessary) on 25-year growth projections FOR THE ENTIRE REGION. However, US Census data for the specific population of Hilton Head Island, shows a 6-year trend (from 2015 on), of a declining population. Additionally, there is much assessment, by HHI Town Government and others, that Hilton Head is approaching its build-out point. While Bluffton and other areas of the region are likely far from the saturation point, the fact that Hilton Head IS approaching that point, places into question the need to construct a highway of such a grandiose scale, if the growth on Hilton Head will likely fall short of the pace of the rest of the region.
4 – Inadequate Attention to Other Alternatives – Our congestion problems are caused by highly peaked traffic flows during a few worker commuting hours each workday, and a Saturday check-in surge. The worker peaks are not far above the present road capacity and might be mitigated by better public transportation; off-island parking lots; inducements to have more than one person per vehicle; and/or other techniques. Similarly, the check-in peak could be better spread out.
There has been no attention to these methods as an alternative to spending large sums and causing massive disruption for an expansion that may not provide much improvement or may be in the wrong location. A comment that frequently comes up from the Community is that we should repair/replace the one aging bridge span, but put all our remaining funding and energy into a second bridge. This would add a second evacuation route in the event of a hurricane. Much more attention should have been given to evaluating this and other alternatives.
5 – Inadequate Plan Comparisons - Given the above, and several alternates suggested by the community, it would appear logical to show the cost, performance, impacts, and pros/cons of each of the plans so that the public and their elected representatives could compare them. For example, the cost and throughput of a 6-lane plan with traffic lights, measured from Moss creek to the CIP, could then be fairly compared with a 4-lane plan bypassing the lights, over the same route. An attempt at this was shown, but all the plans considered appeared to be just routing variations of 6 lanes from Moss Creek stopping at Spanish Wells. The efforts of various consultants hired to improve the SCDOT plan mainly buffered its appearance slightly, but not its fundamental flaws. Many in our community have described this as “Putting Lipstick on a Pig.”
A Possible Initial Step Forward
One very practical (and MUCH lower cost) initial step that has not even been mentioned in the SCDOT “Preferred Alternative”, is the implementation of a state of the art, computerized, “smart” traffic signal system, possibly even starting at Buckwalter Parkway, and extending through to Sea Pines. Citizens have been suggesting this as a “first step” for 3 years, yet it is consistently ignored by the local government entities and SCDOT. By this time, the traffic signal upgrades could have been implemented for a comparatively nominal sum, and the impact on traffic flows could have been assessed by now. Perhaps such a coordinated system could even obviate the need for all but the replacement bridge, thus reducing the projected expenditure from the projected $350M to something closer to $50M.
Conclusions
This project is probably the largest single road undertaking in the history of Beaufort County. Yet, after several years of planning, none of the 3 entities, County, HHI Town, nor SCDOT, have been able to provide a plan that is complete, quantified and verified by independent bodies, or wanted by the Community.
Due to these deficiencies, we cannot be assured with any confidence that SCDOT’s plan is the best plan, or that it will even meet its goals. Furthermore, it is likely to require significant additional funding in the future to patch its missing parts and known weaknesses. If this project were presented to a Corporate Board or University Engineering School we are confident that they would issue the same warnings. And the magnitude of the project as laid out by SCDOT, runs the very real risk of destroying the character, uniqueness, and bucolic barrier island beauty of the entrance to Hilton Head Island, thus jeopardizing its attractiveness to tourists going forward, with the likelihood of a negative economic impact on the entire region.
As stewards of taxpayer funds, you have a responsibility to assure that they are properly used. Based on the project’s escalating costs, missing parts, inadequate scientific planning, inaccurate population growth assessment, adverse environmental impacts, and nearly universal community disapproval, we believe that it is inappropriate to commit any more public funds to it until a much more thorough independent analysis, including examination of other viable options, is performed.
Sincerely,
Diederik Advocaat
Steven Baer
Joseph Kernan
Gray Smith
Richard Wallace
7100+ Petition Signers
Residents for the Right Corridor
Cc:
Beaufort County Council
Town Council of Hilton Head Island
Craig Winn – SCDOT
Senator Tom Davis