Recreation
Project helps maintain access as bike path grows
There are no signs that designate the 13 parking spaces at the south end of Business 17 for bike path users, but Dennis and Alcione Brecka thought they would give it a try.
“It’s great having this here,” Dennis said. “We saw it and figured it must be for the bike path.”
The couple lives in Prince Creek and Brecka said he didn’t think there was a safe route to the Bike the Neck system of paths that now stretch from Murrells Inlet to Pawleys Island.
An extension of the Inlet to Intracoastal route in Murrells Inlet opened last month, taking the path from Riverwood Drive to Wachesaw Road. That coincided with the completion of a section on Waverly Road in Pawleys Island that replaced a sidewalk built in the 1980s.
The Breckas loaded their bikes on a rack and drove to the parking lot just north of Huntington Beach State Park, where the bike lanes on Business 17 merge at a wooden bridge that skirts the marsh.
“This was beautiful,” Brecka said after a ride down the path and through the park.
That made the area a popular destination for people who wanted to park and cycle until the state Department of Transportation put up No Parking signs in October 2020. That was the result of “a request from the public,” a DOT official said at the time.
Cars were parking at right angles to the southbound lane of Business 17, which violated state traffic regulations.
The county and the Murrells Inlet 2020 revitalization group received complaints. The county started working on ways to restore the parking.
DDC Engineers drew up a plan for 13 parallel parking spaces separated from the highway by a curb. State Rep. Lee Hewitt got $325,000 for the project included in the 2023 budget for the Department of Parks Recreation and Tourism. The lowest bid was $454,773, so Hewitt and state Sen. Stephen Goldfinch got an extra $190,000 in the next year’s budget.
The project was completed at the beginning of the year, but a snowstorm delayed the ribbon-cutting. State and local officials gathered in the parking lot last month as County Council Member Stella Mercado and Tripp Goldfinch, 8, the senator’s son, wielded the over-sized scissors.
Barry Drecksage watched over the fence that separates the parking area from his home in the Pinnacle neighborhood.
“We’re not happy about it,” he said. “It’s not Murrells Inlet.”
The neighbors wanted the unpaved shoulder closed to parking due to concerns about safety and litter. The result of the county’s search for a way to restore parking that follows DOT regulations is something that looks more urban, he said, with its yellow curbing and retaining wall of split-faced block.
There is also an extra lane of asphalt that runs next to the parking spaces, which are covered with pervious concrete to improve drainage.
“It is the entrance to Murrells Inlet from the south,” Drecksage said. “It should be beautiful.”
One of his neighbors has a buffer of pampas grass, and he might end up planting some, too.
“We bought this property for the view,” Drecksage said, and he and his wife are thinking about selling.
Hewitt said the parking area is important to provide access. “We’ve spent all this money on the bike path,” he said.
There are other places along the route where cyclist park and ride, including Windover Drive on the south side of the park and Waccamaw Elementary School.
While the No Parking signs were up on the south end of Business 17, Hewitt said, he got complaints from businesses farther along the highway about people parking in their lots to access the path.
While there are other areas on Business 17 where people also park perpendicular to the highway, including the county’s Morse Park, those aren’t facing closure by DOT.
“They’ve changed that policy. A letter’s required from the county,” Hewitt said.
