North Myrtle Beach awarded funds to pave city roads

By Ruben Lowman

North Myrtle Beach was recently awarded a significant amount of money to pave many of the roads within city limits. 

The city was awarded $655,158 from The Horry County Transportation Committee, which will help pave a select number of secondary state roads that need the work, while also allowing city officials to stay on schedule with regular maintenance of roads.  

“We thank Horry County Transportation Committee Chairman George Vereen and his committee members for providing us with this funding,” said North Myrtle Beach Mayor Marilyn Hatley. 

“It lets us use city revenue to repave city-owned roads, while also maintaining state-owned secondary roads. Like many other sectors of the business community, many paving contractors have had to increase their prices due to shortages and the increased costs they face with respect to asphalt and other materials, and this generous Horry County CTC funding helps to keep us on track with our road paving schedule.”

City officials said that the funding for the paving will be used for the following state secondary roads: Terminal Street, Hillside Drive South, Perrin Drive, 11th Avenue South, 9th Avenue South, 6th Avenue South, 2nd Avenue South and Hillside Drive North. The overall paving project will include 23,300 feet of roadway in total, using around 65,000 yards or 5,600 tons of asphalt. 

City spokesperson Pat Dowling said that the overall timeline for the project is a quick one, and that it is slated to begin later in the year or early next year.

“Paving will begin in the December/January time frame, and we will be out of the roadways for the most part by spring,” Dowling said.

The project will begin shortly after the city goes through the bidding process for contractors, according to Dowling, which is expected to open soon. As of right now, there has not been a contractor that has been selected for the project.

“The projects have to be put out for public bid,” Dowling said.

Officials said that the city makes an annual assessment where they rank each jurisdiction’s road conditions, and then decide how and where to proceed with upkeep and maintenance. The overall goal is to repave all roads in the city regularly, according to officials, with the more frequent paving being used on the primary roadways that have the largest amount of traffic and require more regular upkeep as a result. 

The city will have additional paving projects coming up and will use some of the funds awarded by the committee for these projects, as well. Dowling said that in addition to the paving of the state secondary roads listed above through the Horry County CTC, the city’s selected contractor will be paving many other roads in the municipality. 

The roads are listed as follows: 48th Avenue South, Woodland Street, Terminal Street, Hillside Drive South, Perrin Drive, 11th Avenue South, 9th Avenue South, 6th Avenue South, 2nd Avenue South, Hillside Drive North, 28th Avenue North, Waterway Drive, Cane Street and North Ocean Boulevard. 

Dowling said that the North Myrtle Beach Streets Department will also be carrying out paving projects in the near future, which will be on the following streets: Perrin Drive, 22nd Avenue North, Sandpiper Street, Toucan Drive and Emu Drive. 

“This paving will be funded by the city as part of its annual paving program,” Dowling said. 

“The city inspects and ranks all of its streets annually, and then paves accordingly. The city tries to repave each street every 15 years, although some of the more heavily used streets are repaved more often.”

The Horry County Transportation Committee that awarded the city the initial funds is a part of South Carolina’s “C” Program. The program is a partnership between the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) and the state’s 46 counties, which is designed to grant funding for local transportation and infrastructure projects, which includes improvements to city streets, as well as state and county roads.

The “C” program is funded by a portion of the state’s gasoline tax, which is selected to distribute to each of the counties using the figures for their population, land area and road mileage.