COASTAL OBSERVER

Georgetown County will commission studies of the business districts in Pawleys Island and Murrells Inlet to create shovel-ready projects for state highway funding that will improve pedestrian access and safety along with aesthetics.

The draft budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 includes $200,000 for Pawleys Island and $100,000 for Business 17 in Murrells Inlet.

“This is definitely to fill in the details that have been talked about in a general sense,” Administrator Angela Christian said.

The Highway 17 corridor on Waccamaw Neck was the subject of a study in 2003 by the Grand Strand Area Transportation Study, a regional group that prioritizes projects for federal funds received by the state Department of Transportation. The most noticeable project to come out of that was the raised median that replaced a two-way left-turn lane in the Pawleys Island business district in 2015.

The corridor study was updated in 2021 and approved by County Council. It included $53.3 million of road improvements to be carried out through 2040 if funding was available.

The update, from the engineering firm AECOM, included a video rendering of how the proposed projects would affect traffic flow.

“It was clear to me that we need a plan for Highway 17 in Pawleys,” Council Member Stella Mercado said. She was elected the following year.

She asked for the new study to make sure that improvements are ones residents want. Those include “complete streets with curb and gutters, multi-use paths and pedestrian friendly crosswalks, while also moving traffic safely through Pawleys,” she said.

“We recognize there are some issues with parking. We definitely would like to see some pedestrian connections, some streetscaping. We’ve got to have a plan for that,” Christian said.

While the scope of the study is still to be defined, she said it is likely to be from Martin Luther King Road south to Pawleys Island Plaza. Christian said  extending the raised median won’t be included in the county’s work.

The update included a reconfiguration of the North Causeway-Waverly Road intersection to restrict left turns. It showed a pedestrian crossing that would run diagonally through the intersection.

The crossing raised some questions, said Mark Hoeweler, the executive director of GSATS.

He said he was aware of the county’s interest in doing further study.

“You could take the concepts from AECOM and turn them into design,” he said. “That’s what I would imagine.”

One of those projects, a $10 million reconfiguration of the Litchfield Drive and Country Club Drive intersections, is in the current GSATS improvement program with engineering to start in fiscal 2025 and construction in fiscal 2027.

Mercado said the goal of the Pawleys study is to get “shovel ready” projects designed in advance of GSATS funding.

“When they start doing things on 17, we’ve got to be ready,” Christian said.

Business 17 was not part of the corridor study.

“A lot of this is related to safety concerns,” Christian said. “We’re thinking we can find some practical solutions.”

While parking will be included, she added “this is not an opportunity for us to get a parking garage” in Murrells Inlet.