The US 278 Bridge Plan Got Smaller. Here's What Still Changes Between Moss Creek and Pinckney Island.

The project once drawn as four new bridges, new lanes and a path across Mackay and Skull Creeks is now one new eastbound span. At a September 2026 Hilton Head Island Town Council meeting, a Beaufort County project manager explained that construction costs rose from about $300 million to $500 million. The work was rescoped to replace the structurally deficient eastbound bridge first, according to a Citizen Portal recap of that meeting. The same update reported a federal finding of no significant impact in May, final design due in summer 2027, and construction expected to start in early 2028.

For Moss Creek, the smaller plan moves the change. The gate and the Moss Creek Drive light stay as they are. The difference you'll notice is one island east, at the left turns into Pinckney Island. Several of the on-island fixes the bridge project left out show up separately on the countywide ballot voters see on November 3.

The Project Starts Just Past Your Gate

SCDOT's project site sets the study area from Moss Creek Drive in Bluffton to C. Heinrichs Circle by Windmill Harbour, just onto Hilton Head Island. The project FAQ describes the work as limited to "just past Moss Creek Drive." It also says that for most neighborhoods, access would stay exactly the same. The project materials don't call for any change to the Moss Creek Drive intersection itself.

That boundary affects the commute in a specific way. The bridge being replaced is the eastbound one over Mackay Creek, built in 1956. SCDOT calls it still safe for daily use, but more expensive to maintain and nearing the end of its useful life. The agency warns that waiting could bring heavier maintenance costs, future limits on heavy vehicles, or temporary closures that could disrupt access to the island. The project is meant to keep the eastbound span from becoming the next problem. It isn't a capacity upgrade.

Built Beside the Old Span

The new eastbound bridge goes up parallel to the existing one, so traffic keeps moving onto the island while crews work. According to the FAQ, the only measurable traffic impact would come near the end, when crews connect the mainline eastbound lanes to the new bridge. Once it opens, the old eastbound bridges over Mackay and Skull Creeks come down. That leaves two lanes eastbound on the new structure and two lanes westbound on the existing westbound bridges.

The lane count has been described several ways. The Town of Hilton Head Island's project page refers to a "new three-lane bridge." SCDOT's FAQ is more precise. The bridge will be built wide enough for three lanes but striped for two at first, to match the roads at either end, so a future widening would only need new paint.

Here's what changes under the scaled plan and what doesn't:

The missing path was a deliberate choice. In February 2025, Beaufort County and the Town reviewed costed alternatives. By joint resolution in March 2025, they decided to replace the eastbound bridges without pedestrian facilities, which would have cost an estimated $50 million more. SCDOT's reasoning is that the nearest bike and pedestrian facilities are more than a mile away in each direction, so there would be no safe way on or off the bridge.

The Left Turn That Goes Away

Pinckney Island is where the project changes how people actually use the road. The refuge parking entrance is on the north side of US 278 and the boat landing is on the south side. The Island Packet reported in 2021 that left turns there are hazardous, and the refuge manager said eliminating them would improve visitor safety.

SCDOT's public meeting materials present the redesign as something the community asked for. The changes:

• US 278 access limited to right-in and right-out, with no left turns, but both destinations still reachable from either direction
• A new ramp to the C.C. Haigh Jr. Boat Landing
• A new local road that loops under both bridges and connects the landing and the refuge

This matters for a Saturday morning. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service keeps Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge open sunrise to sunset, seven days a week. Visitors leave their cars at the parking area and continue on foot or by bicycle. The refuge has more than 14 miles of gravel and grass trails. The walk from the lot to Ibis Pond is under two miles, and there are no restrooms or drinking water, according to the refuge's activities page. Across the highway, Beaufort County lists the C.C. Haigh Jr. Boat Landing as serving Mackay and Skull Creeks, with about 90 parking spaces, a ramp, a courtesy dock and a fixed pier.

Construction could briefly affect both spots. The project's signed environmental document says that if staging or stockpiling requires a temporary or full closure of the refuge or landing access, the contractor must coordinate with SCDOT, the Federal Highway Administration, USFWS and Beaufort County. Early field work has already happened without disruption. In March 2026, geotechnical drilling began from a barge, and Beaufort County said it would take about six weeks and was not expected to interrupt traffic.

Mariner's Cove is the only neighborhood whose entrance changes. Residents there would come and go through the existing signal at the base of the bridge near Windmill Harbour, then take the new Hog Island Connector under US 278. SCDOT acknowledges the route is less direct and calls it safer and more reliable in heavy traffic.

What Got Cut, and Where Some of It Reappears

The scaled project leaves out several on-island items: dual left-turn lanes from US 278 onto Squire Pope Road, left-turn restrictions on the island, and changes to the US 278 curve on Jenkins Island. The Town says the County's decision to put all available corridor funding into the eastbound span left the rest of the corridor through the island without identified money. In response, Town Council adopted the William Hilton Parkway Gateway Corridor Master Plan on September 15, 2026. It covers the corridor from the foot of the Jenkins Island bridge through the Stoney neighborhood to Spanish Wells and Wild Horse Roads. Adopting the plan did not authorize construction or commit funding.

Several of those gaps appear on Beaufort County's proposed 2026 transportation sales tax project list, which goes to voters on November 3, 2026. The items closest to the bridges and to Moss Creek:

1. Squire Pope Road and William Hilton Parkway, $14.4 million. Lane restructuring at the island gateway intersection to improve traffic flow and reduce congestion.
2. Spanish Wells Road and William Hilton Parkway, $39.7 million. An upgrade to the gateway intersection aimed at mobility, delays and fewer conflict points.
3. Countywide traffic signal improvements, $19.075 million. The study corridors for an adaptive signal network include US 278 from Argent Boulevard to Moss Creek Drive.
4. Fording Island Road resurfacing, $27.0964 million. US 278 from SC 170 to the Hilton Head Island bridge.

The list has no separate line item for the eastbound bridge replacement itself. The County's page notes that the 2018 sales tax supplied roughly $80 million for US 278 corridor work. We covered the SC 170 items on the same ballot in our post on the stretch outside Oldfield's gate.

The Calendar From Here

In April 2026, county officials told WTOC that bridge design was 60 percent complete and construction would take about two and a half years. The County said it would move forward whether or not a federal Large Bridge Grant comes through. Here's the sequence as currently published:

• November 3, 2026: Countywide vote on the transportation sales tax list
• Summer 2027: Final design due
• Early 2028: Construction expected to begin, subject to FHWA approval
• About 2.5 years later: The new eastbound span opens and the old eastbound bridges come down

SCDOT and Beaufort County take comments and sign up people for project updates through the US 278 Eastbound Bridge Replacement site. The full corridor plan, still listed as on hold, has its own page at scdot278corridor.com.

If you're weighing a home in Moss Creek or nearby and wondering how the bridge timeline could affect your daily drive or your future plans, I'm happy to talk it through with you. You can reach me at Carolyn Kraus, and we'll look at what the project means for the specific address you have in mind. Let's Connect.