DESCRIPTION: The Lowcountry Area Transportation Study’s (LATS) Policy Committee, at its meeting on June 26, 2015, voted unanimously to designate LRTA as the region’s Designated Recipient. To effectively utilize the Small Urban Area public transit funds now available from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to provide new and expanded services to the area, Palmetto Breeze is undertaking the second phase of planning for those services. 

This project is the second component of ongoing public transit planning in the Town of Hilton Head Island Census Small Urban Area utilizing the Small Urban Area public transit funds now available from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to expand transportation choices and provide broader resident and visitor mobility in the designated area. This phase of planning will move forward from the conclusions and recommendations established in the 2018 Palmetto Breeze Small Urban Area Transit Development Plan: Existing Conditions, Needs Analysis, New Service Recommendations and Implementation Plan and strives to connect the communities in the Small Urban Area with each other and their residents with employment, education and services, and visitors with accommodations, attractions and businesses.

The objective is to ensure that the new and/or expanded transit operations are feasible and well utilized by truly meeting the needs of potential passengers in terms of origins, destinations and timing,

CHALLENGES: Due to the Covid-19 policies and recommendations, traditional public meetings were not an option. All materials and meetings would need to be conducted virtually which included: presentations, exhibits, public comments, and virtual hosting options.

RESPONSIBILITIES: J. Bragg Consulting was responsible for the Public Outreach Coordination for the planning and implementation processes with project stakeholders.  This included the development of a virtual public meeting which involved oversight and review of information for the webpage, provided guidance on public outreach and created the press release for the virtual public meeting, performed QA/QC for the proposed transit route maps and other documentation, etc.  Guidance was provided on the types of online meetings – virtual public meeting versus townhall meetings – as well as the various platforms which could be used.  It was determined to create a webpage to host the virtual public meeting on Palmetto Breeze’s website.  It was determined to utilize an online meeting from the beginning which was beneficial to the project as the virtual public meeting was “live” during the COVID-19 pandemic.