$590M Horry County road projects budget open to input from residents

When the RIDE III Sales Tax Commission hammers out a list of $590 million worth of road projects Thursday, the plan will be far from final.

Officials will host six public input sessions in the coming weeks to collect feedback on the proposal, which must be ready for Horry County Council to consider by May 17.

“We’re going to take it out and get public input before we finalize it,” said Eddie Dyer, chairman of the RIDE III commission. “Because they may have better ideas than we did.”

RIDE III is the county’s proposed road-building program. If approved by the voters this fall, the RIDE III list would be funded with a 1 percent sales tax collected over eight years.

Although the RIDE III commission has been preparing a slate of construction projects for months, in recent weeks some new ideas have emerged, including adding a lane to Singleton Ridge Road in Conway and widening Sea Mountain Highway near Little River.

The commission plans to discuss those suggestions and older proposals on Thursday as they develop a prioritized list to show the public. The 4 p.m. meeting will be held in the council conference room of the Government and Justice Center on Second Avenue in Conway.

The first of the public input sessions will be at 6 p.m. on March 16 at the Carolina Forest Recreation Center. Subsequent sessions will be held in Myrtle Beach (March 22), Conway (March 24), Surfside Beach (March 29), North Myrtle Beach (March 31) and in western Horry (April 4).

One challenge facing the commission involves the extension of S.C. 31 to the North Carolina line.

During last week’s Horry County Council meeting, Dyer asked the council to apply the $30 million that’s expected to be left over from the southern extension of S.C. 31 to the northern extension project currently on the RIDE III list.

The northern construction is expected to cost $120 million and the commission would like to use the extra money from the southern work on the same road. That would also free up $30 million in RIDE III for other North Strand projects: widening Kings Road and Sea Mountain Highway and adding turn lanes at Ocean Creek.

“[We could] apply it to three fairly critical projects that can be done fairly quickly in two or three years on the north end,” Dyer said.

He pointed out that it will take at least six years for preliminary work such as environmental assessments, permitting and right-of-way acquisition to be finished on the northern extension of 31.

But Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus said the council couldn’t accommodate the commission’s request because any extra money from the southern extension of S.C. 31 goes to the State Infrastructure Bank. The county can ask for that money, but there’s no guarantee the request will be approved.

“We don’t know that we can or will get that $30 million back,” Lazarus said, adding that the amount may decline if problems arise during construction.

Instead, Lazarus suggested extending the life of the commission beyond the RIDE III referendum. He said the same group could serve as an advisory board that would help the council decide what to do with any money leftover from road construction projects.

The group would have input on money returned from the infrastructure bank or any extra cash from RIDE II, the most recent roads program.

“We’ll utilize the experience that Mr. Dyer’s group has from analyzing all the road projects and bring it to full council for us to look at,” he said.

Lazarus plans to bring a formal resolution about the RIDE III commission to the council soon.

Dyer cautioned that preparing a list with widespread support is key to winning voters’ approval. He noted that the county has nearly $2 billion in road needs with little help from the state or federal governments in sight.

“There’s no Plan B for better roads in Horry County if we don’t do it ourselves,” he said.

This story was originally published February 13, 2016 at 3:37 PM with the headline "$590M Horry County road projects budget open to input from residents."