Imagine being stuck indefinitely because there is only one way in and out of your community. This is what just happened in Sanibel Island, Florida, due to the ferocious Hurricane Ian. The powers that be in Beaufort County don’t seem to care that something like this could happen at the only mainland connection to Hilton Head Island.
In recent years, state and county officials have proposed several options to improve this connection, including an independent route connecting US 278 to the southern part of the island – a completely separate route – from Bluffton at the Marshland Road interchange which connects to Palmetto. Bay Road on the island. Let’s call it the “Southern Crossing”. But when asked at a public briefing about that option, a representative from the South Carolina Department of Transportation summarily said “there would be too much hassle and red tape with environmental assessments.”
So, instead of looking to the future, the planners opted for the easy way: using the existing corridor, demolishing the old bridges and building new three-lane spans. And the discussion now is whether it should be a six-lane bridge — the DOT diagram shows all six lanes with shoulders and a bike lane — or two side-by-side bridges with three lanes each. How creative and stimulating.
And there is no point in conducting an independent, unbiased end-to-end corridor study to assess the total impact of all traffic that will bottleneck there and encounter additional traffic signals. Our problem is peak hour congestion, and 60% of that peak traffic is heading to the south end of Hilton Head Island. So, with a second crossing directing traffic there, this means that only 40% of traffic would use the existing crossing, eliminating the need for additional lanes there.
Of the four existing bridges, only one was found to be structurally deficient. All four could undergo a thorough rehabilitation and save a ton of money that could be used for the new Southern Crossing. But politics, special interests and egos seem to have clouded the thinking of our elected municipal officials and the private entities that pressure them. You would think that with the recently passed Federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – of which South Carolina will receive about $4.6 billion for highways – our political representatives could try to get funds to supplement what is already available for the Southern Crossing and to repair these existing bridges.
However, there is another course of action: to continue with the flawed plan being discussed at the moment and turn to prayer as the ultimate solution – praying that a disaster like the one that just happened on Sanibel Island will not ever happens in Hilton Head. And when it does, we can all better appreciate the “thoughts and prayers” that will be extended to all of us Islanders.
Charles P. Walczak of Hilton Head Island is the former engineer in charge of building the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge over the Hudson River in New York City.
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