Bus shelters still not up along Coast RTA routes

Terrance Elliott can take the South Carolina heat as he waits for a Coast RTA bus off Highmarket Street in Georgetown.

It’s the rain, whether soft or heavy, that he can’t stand, and wishes Coast RTA would have completed its bus shelter program that started in the mid-2000s.

“Once the rain gets you and your stuff, it doesn’t make for a fun day,” Elliott said. “I see it a lot. Women, especially, will get their pocketbooks wet and I can only imagine what kind of mood that puts them in.”

Created in the mid-2000s, Coast’s shelter project was initially expected to cost $1 million and result in more than 70 shelters being installed along bus routes in Horry and Georgetown counties. But the program never got off the ground. Coast officials struggled to work with municipalities to erect the shelters. They also ran into zoning and underground cable issues.

Most of the shelters have never been installed. Ten were sold to the City of Myrtle Beach in 2006 for Horry County Schools students, not Coast riders. Frustrated with Coast’s lack of progress, the S.C. Department of Transportation canceled the shelter initiative in December 2013. Four months later, Coast’s board fired CEO Myers Rollins, citing failures with the bus shelter program. Rollins blamed the project’s struggles on SCDOT. He has since sued the state agency and Coast.

Brian Piascik, Coast’s new general manager and chief executive officer, said getting the shelters up is a slow work in progress.

“To be honest, I haven’t thought about it a lot yet. Right now, I’m worried about vehicles and getting our grants straight,” Piascik said. “It’s on my list. It’s still kind of down the road.”

Ron Andrews, assistant city manager for Myrtle Beach, said the city asked for 25 shelters total and have them in storage.

“We are waiting on Coast RTA to determine their routes so we can place them in the proper places,” Andrews said. “When we know the routes, we will identify the locations and publicize them... When the decision is made to install, we will use our staff for constructing the concrete pad and for erecting the shelter.”

And that’s the hold up, Piascik said — identifying stops.

“Honestly, we need to define our stops,” Piascik said. “I’m more interested in getting a stop sign out there to define our stop and get away from the flag stopping, and then you can take a more scientific look at it in terms of where people are getting on the service and actually site shelters for actual utilization, rather than just putting them out there wherever.”

The delays are also on the south Strand.

Jackie Broach, spokeswoman for Georgetown County, said the project to put up its shelters was marked as “on hold.”

“The bus shelters have been acquired and we are awaiting information regarding appropriate locations from the planning department,” Broach said.

Planning director Boyd Johnson said he doesn't have a timetable on when installation may occur.

For now, Coast will continue to receive decreased state funding for five years to pay the state back for the failed shelter program. As for the future, Piascik said it’s a matter of working with area municipalities to get the shelters up and work at a more manageable pace if Coast needs more shelters.

“We’ll stay on them because that’s really something that is important to our service,” Piascik said. “I probably won’t do it in such large chunks. I think we’ll try and do it a little more piecemeal.”

This story was originally published August 27, 2015 at 11:24 AM with the headline "Bus shelters still not up along Coast RTA routes."