Construction on a multi-use path along Kings River Road in Pawleys Island could begin at the end of this year.

The South Carolina Department of Transportation is working on preliminary engineering and getting easements, program manager Leah Quattlebaum told Grand Strand Area Transportation Study (GSATS) members last week.

The project is expected to cost $681,600, some of which will come from Georgetown County and Bike the Neck fundraising.

A portion of the county money will come from a Downtown Pawleys Streetscape project that was cancelled after the cost was more than what was expected.

GSATS has had the path on its project list for seven years and during that time a 13-year-old boy was killed while riding his bike with his family.

Eventually the Kings River Road path will connect with a path on the north side of Waverly Road, which will allow access to Waccamaw Elementary School.

The Waverly Road path is part of the Safe Routes to School program.

Quattlebaum said SCDOT has the funding and is working on preliminary engineering and getting easements.

SCDOT is also doing preliminary engineering on a multi-use path on Church Street in Georgetown from Anthaun Maybank Drive to Reservoir Road under the Safe Routes to School program.

The Kings River Road path is part of the East Coast Greenway, which travels down the South Carolina coast from North Carolina to Georgia.

The project should be completed in the next 10 years.

About 70 percent of the project in the state has been built or has funding in place. The most expensive part of the project will be getting over the Georgetown bridges.

Other projects

• Quattlebaum said preliminary engineering work is being done on improvements to the following intersections: Highway 17 and Willbrook Boulevard in Litchfield; Highways 17 and 701 in Georgetown; Highway 701 and Wedgefield Road; Martin Luther King Road and Petigru Road in Pawleys Island; and Highways 17 and 521 in Georgetown.

• SCDOT will hold public hearings on a plan to widen Black River Road in Georgetown.

The plan is a scaled-down version of a project that would have made the entire road three lanes.

The new $2 million project would install a left-turn lane that would start near Georgetown Memorial Hospital and end at Fraser Street.

Work is expected to start in 2016.

• The growth of the population along the coasts of the Carolinas has changed the rules that govern GSATS, changing it into a Transportation Management Area.

Approximately 15,000 people from Shallotte, N.C., are now included in the GSATS area, which means the committee will have to include representatives from that area.

• Linwood Altman, sitting in at the GSATS meeting for Pawleys Island Mayor Bill Otis, questioned why the second phase of the Andrews Bypass was never completed.

He said SCDOT approved funding eight years ago.

Quattlebaum said there is no funding currently in place.

By Chris Sokoloski

csokoloski@gtowntimes.com