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Beaufort County is reorganizing its priorities for road projects to figure out how best to spend money from the 2006 sales tax increase while coping with the down economy.
The County Council approved a new priority list in February that puts emphasis on connectivity in Bluffton and improving traffic flow along U.S. 278. The new list comes out of the document county and municipal officials established four years ago to show voters what the 1-cent sales tax increase would be used for. Voters approved the tax, which was predicted to bring in $152 million. But the road projects also rely on impact fees charged on developers, a revenue stream that has slowed as the housing boom ended.
The top priority on the new list is building connector roads for U.S. 278, including at Plantation Business Park and from the Bluffton Township Fire District building to Berkeley Hall, both improvements the county says represent significant safety, capacity and connectivity benefits. Next is the completion of a 3-mile stretch of Bluffton Parkway to the base of the Hilton Head bridge, which the county says could reduce traffic in 278 in Bluffton by as much as 30 percent and drastically improve hurricane evacuation. But the council also wants to delay construction of a proposed flyover bridge that would connect the two highways at the base of the bridge until 2011 or 2012. The next priority is completing widening 278 through Buckwalter Parkway to help the capacity of major intersections in that area. Then, the county wants to focus on completing construction work on S.C. 170 between the Bluffton Parkway and 278. The project would include improving pavement and shoulder conditions, increasing the traffic capacity and opening the door for more development along the road.
