BLUFFTON -- Most people know Beaufort County's proposed 1 percent sales tax will pay for road improvements, but they might not know that it also will pay for pathways.

According to Beaufort County estimates, the sales tax would pay for slightly more than 30 miles of paved trails for bicyclists and pedestrians, many of those in the greater Bluffton area. But that information did not appear on all of the project lists the county distributed.

Sales tax commission co-chairwoman Paula Harper Bethea said the omission was an oversight. Because most of the pathways are part of road-widening projects, they were not always listed separately.

Now bicycling advocacy group Greater Bluffton Pathways, which spent a year and a half lobbying to have pathways included on the tax list, wants to make sure voters know about them, president Karen Heitman said.

The projects include a trail from Michael C. Riley Elementary School to the Bluffton library and pathways that would run next to Buckwalter Parkway, next to S.C. 170 between S.C. 46 and U.S. 278, and next to Simmonsville and Burnt Church roads between their intersections with U.S. 278 and the Bluffton Parkway.

The Bluffton Parkway would be completed between Simmonsville Road and S.C. 170 with pathways running along its entire length.

A pathway also is planned for Hilton Head Island from Squire Pope Road to the Sea Pines Circle on the south side of William Hilton Parkway, and there are several pathways planned for northern Beaufort County.

One of the important things about the Bluffton trails, Heitman said, is that they link to one another, creating the beginning of a pathways system that town officials have promoted as a way to reduce traffic by allowing residents to get around without their cars.

"Unless (the paths) link up people are less likely to use them because they don't go anywhere," she said.

Heitman, who lives in Sun City Hilton Head, said she first got involved in advocating for pathways because she wanted to be able to ride her bicycle to downtown Bluffton. If the referendum passes and the pathways are built, she finally will be able to do that.

But Greater Bluffton Pathways is not convincing everyone that the tax is a good idea. Thomas Heyward, chairman of the Lowcountry Regional Transportation Authority and a former Bluffton councilman, said he received an e-mail from the group encouraging him to support the referendum, but it didn't change his mind about voting no.

"I wrote back saying, 'Thank you very much, but I won't be voting for it,' " he said.

The e-mail Heyward replied to had been sent to "at least a hundred people," he said, "and 30 or 40 wrote me back saying, 'Bravo.' "

Heyward said he did not oppose the idea of using a sales tax to pay for road improvements, or even pathways, but he did oppose the list of projects this tax would pay for.

The projects were chosen "to get all the special interest groups to support the tax in their area," he said. "It was a political division of the money rather than giving it to what's needed."

He especially objects to the inclusion of what he calls "municipal projects," such as improving the waterfront park in Beaufort and building a municipal court and police facility in the city.

Heitman said if the tax doesn't pass it could take many years to piece together funding for the pathways.

"This is the easiest way to find funding," she said, "and it will give the greatest benefit."