RIDE III committee allocates final $200m in road projects in Horry County

Horry County’s RIDE III committee allocated its final $203 million toward road projects its committee members would like to see done if a sales tax referendum passes in 2016.

Now that list is sent to a six-member commission who will review the projects, prioritize them and send them to the full County Council for a vote before it is sent to the voters.

The final projects approved for the list include $21.7 million to four-lane S.C. 9 east coming out of Loris to Highway 66, $65 million to widen U.S. 701 from the Homewood area north of Conway to S.C. 22, $19.8 million to address intersections in Garden City on U.S. 17 Bypass, extending Palmetto Pointe to S.C. 544 at Big Block Road, and the largely talked about extension of S.C. 31 to the North Carolina state line.

The committee voted to allocate about $89.8 million toward the 4 1/2-mile project to extend S.C. 31 to about Hickman Road in North Carolina, but is riding on a 2005 commitment from the neighbors up north to do their part in connecting to S.C. 31, which worries Eddie Dyer, chairman of the committee.

“I still have reservations, as chair,” Dyer said. “I believe that [commission] needs to get real serious to do everything they can to get North Carolina to make some kind of commitment before we put that on the ballot and roll the dice.”

Departments of Transportation for South Carolina and North Carolina have an agreement dating back to the mid-2000s that states North Carolina will not participate in an I-73 project, which is a proposed interstate that would connect Myrtle Beach to Michigan, unless it sees progress on I-74. The extension of S.C. 31 to the state line would eventually connect to I-74 in North Carolina.

The committee decided to place a caveat on S.C. 31 that if the commission realizes it cannot be done, the committee endorses replacing that project with widening S.C. 90 to four lanes from S.C. 22 to Robert Edge Parkway.

About $1.94 billion in road requests were initially made for RIDE III and the list was narrowed down by a formula that included a prioritized list from the committee’s 18 members, whether the project is on the Grand Strand Area Transportation Study long-range plan, whether it was on the RIDE II list and whether it had plans for a bike or walking path.

Horry County’s RIDE III committee has been meeting for almost a year to nail out about $530 million worth of road projects that will be funded by a one-cent sales tax if voters approve it in a planned 2016 referendum. Horry County has done this twice before to build and resurface hundreds of miles of county roads and build such roads as the Aynor overpass, the back gate bridge, the widening of S.C. 707, the southern extension of S.C. 31 and many more.

The current RIDE III plan — which still must be confirmed by the committee — submitted to a commission for prioritization and finalized by the full County Council, addresses the headaches that surround U.S. 501 and additional roads through the rapidly growing Carolina Forest area. It would add an additional lane to U.S. 501 north and southbound from U.S. 31 to the S.C. 544 interchange, extend Postal Way eastward to Waccamaw Pines and make intersection improvements, and extend Middle Ridge Drive eastward to West Perry Road and west to Singleton Ridge Road.

The plan, so far, also calls for paving 100 miles of dirt roads and resurfacing 100 miles.

The S.C. 31 extension project was able to have nearly $90 million earmarked for it after committee member Pam Creech pulled a $60 million project she had on the table to widen S.C. 90 from East Cox Ferry Road to International Drive.

Creech said after the vote she decided to rescind her proposal when she learned more about how International Drive will be addressed in an impending project from RIDE II. She said there will be lighted intersection at Environmental Way and International.

“That means we can manage that traffic without widening 90,” Creech said, adding her project may have came in above $60 million because of obstacles the project would face environmentally. “If you add all that together and we can move truck traffic into the Solid Waste Authority without adding on to S.C. 90, then I felt that was reasonable.”

Creech said she knew about the projected growth along S.C. 90, but there is only so much that can be done to address all areas of the county.

“I agree with so many people who have said we never plan correctly and to a degree that’s true,” Creech said. “But if you have piece meal funds, then you have piece meal plans.”

The committee also voted to encourage the County Council to ask the State Infrastructure Bank that the projected $20 million surplus from RIDE II be used toward the extension of S.C. 31.

Creech echoed the opinion of some committee members who wished the state would allow counties to ask for the sales tax longer than seven years, which is currently required.

“If they could do that over a 20-year period and we could get the amount that we need, then we don’t have to have a piece meal plan with piece meal money, and your planning and everything could go so much better,” Creech said.

This story was originally published April 8, 2015 at 9:04 PM with the headline "RIDE III committee allocates final $200m in road projects in Horry County."