There are new roads and bridges. There are wider roads. There are overpasses and intersections that were reworked to take the kinks out of local traffic.
Mark Hoeweler had a hand in all of them in 32 years as the region’s transportation planner.
The project of which he is most proud is more modest. It’s a ribbon of pavement that lets you get on a bicycle at the South Causeway to Pawleys Island and ride to 62nd Avenue North in Myrtle Beach. There are some gaps. A path along Atlantic Avenue in Garden City is due for construction next year.
Still, Hoeweler said, “that was professionally rewarding.”
It’s part of the East Coast Greenway that runs through 15 states. To understand why it’s important to Hoeweler is to understand how he does his job.
He is retiring at the end of the month as the executive director of the Grand Strand Area Transportation Study, an intergovernmental group that allocates federal funds for projects in Georgetown, Horry and Brunswick, N.C., counties. Hoeweler was one of the first staff members when the organization, known as GSATS, was formed in 1985 and took on its current role after the region’s population topped 50,000 in the 1990 census.
Federal highway law requires a “metropolitan planning organization” to direct spending. GSATS is staffed through the Waccamaw Regional Council of Governments, where Hoeweler is also the assistant executive director.
“When it comes to highway, road funding, he’s a walking encyclopaedia,” said state Rep. Lee Hewitt, who chairs the 24-member GSATS policy committee. “Every time something’s come up, Mark’s been involved in it.”
The East Coast Greenway includes the Bike the Neck route that runs past Hoeweler’s home in the Tradition Club. He isn’t a cyclist, but he does see the impact of the route.
Waccamaw Regional was still providing planning services to Georgetown County when the bike path was made a condition of the approval for Willbrook Plantation.
The goal was to provide an alternative route for people in the new neighborhoods to get to the beach at Litchfield by the Sea.
“That was where I thought of the transportation and the recreational benefits,” Hoeweler said.
In the mid-1990s, he started talking with other planners who were involved in the GSATS process. The East Coast Greenway had appeal across jurisdictions.
“We kind of got everybody on board,” Hoeweler said. “A lot of that stuff wouldn’t have been accomplished without government intervention.”
He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science before earning a master’s degree in city and regional planning, both from Ohio State University. He knew from the start that he wanted to focus on transportation planning.
He started work in Georgetown a year after earning his master’s. It was Election Day, 1992.
The GSATS budget was $1.9 million. This year it is close to $17 million. Part of the increase comes from a boost in federal infrastructure spending.
“We’re going up just solely on the population,” Hoeweler said.
The funding isn’t just for roads.
“Before the green way, everybody was just submitting a sidewalk project,” he said.
GSATS decided to earmark 80 percent of its money for alternative transportation projects to the green way. Local projects like Bike the Neck would become part of a regional system. That system would then become part of a larger one.
“It’s a system thing, having the infrastructure,” Hoeweler said. “I have always tried to take a regional approach.”
That’s what makes the project a source of satisfaction.
Hewitt was serving on the county Planning Commission when he first got to know Hoeweler three decades ago. He was named the county’s representative to GSATS long before he ended up servicing on the policy committee as a member of the legislature.
Aside from his knowledge of the process, what made Hoeweler effective, Hewitt said, was that he was a “fair broker of information” to people with conflicting interests.
“Mark has done a great job of that,” Hewitt added. “Making sure the process is fair.”
There is competition between jurisdictions to get projects on the list for funding, which currently stretches to 2040.
But the projects have to work between those jurisdictions. Hoeweler said his one regret is that S.C. 31, the Carolina Bays Parkway, hasn’t been completed into North Carolina. Planning is still underway.
“Both sides of the state line didn’t think the other side of the line wanted it,” Hoeweler said.
Traffic, he added, doesn’t care about jurisdictional boundaries.
“People are going from Point A to Point B, and they’re going there the most efficient and economical way they can,” Hoeweler said.
Hewitt hopes that Hoeweler will stay involved in area transportation issues, either as a consultant or a member of a board or commission.
Hoeweler said he doesn’t have any immediate plans.
“I hope I’ve made a contribution,” he said. “You don’t go to the public sector for accolades and financial rewards.”
Hoeweler’s replacement has not been named.
The only other full-time GSATS staff person is Elizabeth Tucker, a transportation planner. Others at Waccamaw Regional provide part-time services for the organization.
Hewitt said the decision will be made by Waccamaw Regional, but his goal is to have “a path forward” by the next policy committee meeting in February.
