Horry County toll road closer to reality

The Horry County Council had a packed agenda Tuesday night, moving forward on a proposed toll road, addressing funding for the Grand Strand's public transit organization and discussing how to put the meetings online in the future.

After heated debate, the council passed a resolution allowing an engineering firm to move forward with a search for a private company to fund and build the Southern Evacuation Lifeline. The council also heard from the Coast Regional Transportation Authority that the organization still will be eligible for population dependent federal funding, which will ease the strain on the County Council during a tight budget season.

Councilman Howard Barnard, who is the chairman of the SELL committee, announced the proposal from the engineering firm that is conducting the environmental impact study for the proposed SELL route to find a private company to build the road. That company would then be allowed to charge a toll to pass on the road during non-emergency situations.

The resolution gives that engineering company permission to begin that search. Several council members said Tuesday that they wanted more details first. A similar funding idea in Greenville resulted in the private company that built the road defaulting on its bond because fewer people than expected traveled on the road.

"I applaud this effort. It's needed. I say let's all get together and really understand what we are getting into. I would love to have a workshop on it," said Councilman Bob Grabowski. "We don't make some of our best decisions up here trying to do it in a hurry. ... I plan on supporting this; I just have some questions I want answered first."

Barnard argued that the resolution would not require the county to commit to a contract, just to move forward with the search for a funding group.

"I think we have a concept, not a contract. It's a resolution. They're asking for a roll of the dice, they're going out and head hunting for us," said Councilman Brent Schulz.

After several proposed amendments Barnard called for a vote on the resolution, which passed with one no vote, but several council members did not answer.

The council will discuss details of the proposal at an infrastructure and regulation meeting later this month.

The Coast RTA also presented an analysis of its funding needs and outlined operations and ridership for the past year.

Myers Rollins, executive director of the Coast RTA, said the good news in terms of funding is that the agency will not be exempted from federal funds awarded to transportation agencies in smaller urban communities.

The Coast RTA along with several council members had been concerned that the upcoming census count would push Horry County's population above the 200,000 cap for the small cities federal funding grants.

Rollins said Tuesday that federal transportation authorities would allow the authority to discount rural populations in Horry and Georgetown counties from the population requirements.

"That's a godsend, to all of our riders. As the MB area likes to call itself a world-class destination, we will never be that until we have a world-class transit service," said Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland.

The designation will likely mean when the census is complete The Coast RTA will be allowed to receive the federal funding for another 10 years, Rollins said. He said the need for local matching dollars will not be eliminated because many sources of federal funding require a commitment of local matching funds.

Gilland said the council should make an effort to find a way to dedicate a small portion of property tax millage to the agency over that time frame when the economy is looking better. The council will have a spring budget retreat April 8-9 to discuss funding priorities.

The county will also start streaming council meetings to the county's Web site live at the April 6 meeting. The videos can be watched live or watched several days or months later.

Chief information officer Sheila Butler said the meetings will also be indexed by topic so that viewers can select a topic and be taken to the portion of the video when the topic was discussed.