Charleston County Council reallocates funds for part of Main Road Corridor project

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD)– At Thursday night’s Charleston County council meeting, officials discussed updates to a project meant to make county roads less congested and safer.

At the meeting, Charleston County Council learned that in order to finish construction on segment A of the Main Road Corridor Project, they will need to reallocate funds from a separate segment.

Segment A part of the project will continue which will make improvements on U.S. 17, Bees Ferry, River Road and Main Road.

Funds for segment C of the project, which would have been used to make road improvements from Maybank Highway to Betsy Kerrison Parkway have now been reallocated. This means improvements will be stalled until the county can come up with funds for that segment.

“The cost of segment A, which was originally to be about 200 million dollars, turned out to be 400 million dollars, so it doubled in cost. Unfortunately, right now, in order to be able to complete a project that we’ve entered into a contract and is under construction we’re going to be forced to take the funding that has been allocated for segment C and use it towards segment A,” explained Joe Boykin, Charleston County councilmen district 8.

This cost increase came from the prices of materials and labor costs rising. The 2024 Sales Tax Referendum failing may have also contributed to lack of funds, according to Boykin.

“Part of the Transportation Sales Tax Referendum was about 300 million dollars to replace what inflation consumed and the cost increases so if the referendum had passed, we would have had those funds reestablished it could have maybe gone towards segment c,” said Boykin.

Segment C had already faced setbacks including a lack of public support.

“Many properties along that stretch were under conservation as meant for preservation as well as the Angel Oak was part of that project. Then many businesses and homeowners were going to be impacted, several businesses would have had to have been wiped out, the buildings knocked down and taken private residence as well,” said Boykin.

The reallocated funds will now go towards finishing Main Road segment A, which is estimated to be a 4-year project with leaders breaking ground in 2024.

“The reward of getting that project segment A done is going to be critical. We’ll lose that light at Main and 17, we’ll probably save a whole bunch of lives from the horrific collisions that have been occurring there by having a flyover and it will have a safe interchange that won’t require anybody to stop at a signal light so hopefully that will move people across town much quicker and much more safely.” said Boykin.

Officials said the Main Road Corridor Project is expected to be completed in 2028.