Driving between Fort Mill and Charlotte? A $64 million decision will improve the trip
Area road planners still don’t know how they’ll improve the busiest traffic spot on the state line, but they know how they’ll pay for it. Which is a big deal.
“This is one that has been on the radar screen for a long time,” said David Hooper, administrator for the Rock Hill-Fort Mill Area Transportation Study.
Earlier this month the South Carolina Transportation Infrastructure Bank approved more than $64 million for work at the I-77 and Carowinds Boulevard interchange that connects Fort Mill and Charlotte. The money comes two years after the infrastructure bank approved almost $75 million for upgrades at the S.C. 160 interchange in Fort Mill and the Cherry/Celanese roads interchange in Rock Hill.
Hooper’s group voted to add the new Carowinds exit money into its long-range plan on Friday afternoon, pending a 30-day public comment period. It was a housekeeping decision, Hooper said, but still a moment of celebration for people concerned about York County traffic.
Then comes the work of figuring out how to make roads better.
“What are we going to do with this interchange?” said Patrick Hamilton, who heads the county’s Pennies for Progress program and led the infrastructure bank application. “I don’t know.”
Infrastruction bank road funding
The state infrastructure bank is a public body that provides grants, loans or other funding options for major public projects. Seven years ago York County began work on applications to help fund the Carowinds Boulevard, S.C. 160 and Cherry/Celanese intersections. The county already had plans in place for the now complete Gold Hill Road interchange. The now-under-construction interchange to serve what was supposed to be the Carolina Panthers headquarters site in Rock Hill wasn’t a consideration.
Applications were submitted in 2016. An infrastructure bank evaluation committee came and toured the interchanges. Then lawsuits against the board stalled progress on projects submitted from across the state. The lawsuits were resolved and in 2019 the bank reached back out to York County, which updated its applications.
In July of 2020 the infrastructure bank announced seven projects, half of those submitted statewide, would get funding. The rest would be put on hold as the bank didn’t want to allocate all its money with the COVID financial impact still uncertain. The S.C. 160 and Cherry/Celanese projects got almost $75 million combined, to go with match money from York County. Both are in planning stages now, the Fort Mill work ahead of the Rock Hill job.
In May, Hamilton said, the county updated information on the Carowinds project. The infrastructure bank met Sept. 8 to consider the seven holdover projects. Batter seawall work in Charleston, U.S. 601 work in Orangeburg County and S.C. 183 widening in Pickens County were carried over, or held for future decisions, again.
The remaining four projects were approved for funding. The Carowinds interchange just hit the scoring threshold for consideration. The bank approved almost $64.4 million of the total $85.8 million project. The local match from York County is 25% of the project.
Other funded projects were a U.S. 17 and S.C. 41 interchange improvement in Charleston County at $62 million, Whiskey Road improvements in Aiken for almost $21 million and a four-mile widening of Hwy. 246 in Greenwood County for $38 million.
Hamilton made his case for the Carowinds interchange before the infrastructure bank board moments before its decision. Hamilton spoke of the state’s first diverging diamond at Gold Hill Road as the county’s commitment to traffic improvement.
“Exit 90 (Carowinds) continues to be one of the most congested interchanges on I-77,” Hamilton told the board. “It’s been identified by DOT as a hot spot on 77 and one of the most congested areas of the state, as well as I-77.”
Robert Tyson addressed the infrastructure bank board, representing its evaluation committee. All of the projects considered came from the initial list of requests that received about $363 million in total funding.
“We’re calling it phase two, but it’s the balance of the projects that didn’t receive the funding the last time around,” Tyson told the board.
Tyson also noted the nature of the funding.
“All of these are grants,” Tyson said. “None of these were loans.”
Carowinds traffic
One of the busiest backup times along I-77 and Carowinds Boulevard comes about this time each year. The Carowinds theme park and its popular SCarowinds routinely draws enough traffic down through Charlotte in the fall to line up along the interstate. The interchange also gets considerable traffic in the spring and summer when theme park visits are popular.
There are other differences at Carowinds, compared to the other funded Fort Mill and Rock Hill interchanges where growth largely comes from a growing residential base.
“You don’t see that as much when you’re up on Carowinds,” Hooper said. “That doesn’t mean it’s any less important. You’ve got high levels of freight movement. You’ve got elevated safety concerns up there. You’ve got North Carolina folks coming down 49 and 51 for South Carolina gas, and they go back into North Carolina. You’ve got proximity at the amusement park. You’ve got just general growth in the area.”
Because parts of Fort Mill and Rock Hill farther south feed it, and with Charlotte to its north, the Carowinds Boulevard exit records higher traffic counts than any other part of I-77 in the area. Last year the exit saw more than 163,000 average daily trips, according to the state transportation department, more than 40,000 trips more than any other stretch of road or interstate in York County.
Hooper and other area leaders Friday afternoon spoke of the overturned tanker on I-77 last month that crippled traffic throughout the town as a reason why not only I-77 but other routes like U.S. 21 are critical to the area. That event made getting through Fort Mill almost impossible on the final day of the first week of school.
“People couldn’t get out of their driveway,” said Mayor Guynn Savage.
Savage said there was concern should someone need public safety. Hooper said he monitored the event for hours and saw little change.
“No movement on 160,” Hooper said. “There’s no movement on 21. There’s no movement on 77. Having one other viable alternative — knowing it will still fill up quickly, to get people moving where it’s not going through internal roads of Fort Mill where they weren’t designed for that, where you can’t do anything — is going to make all the difference.”
Carowinds Boulevard upgrade
The same diverging diamond used at Gold Hill Road was an initial thought for the S.C. 160 interchange between Baxter and Kingsley. Area growth there led the South Carolina Department of Transportation to settle on a more expensive, more involved setup with flyover bridges. Work is ongoing to determine what type of fix Cherry/Celanese will get.
Hamilton said the county will again ask SCDOT for help on the Carowinds job to evaluate alternatives. It’s the same process as the prior to upgrades. Likely several design options will be evaluated before one is selected.
“We look at constructability, cost,” Hamilton said. “Most importantly how it’s going to work 20 years from now? A big public process that goes into all that. Essentially that’s a multi-year process before we can then select what alternative will be the final selection.”
It likely will be late this year or early next before the county gets the project to SCDOT for initial evaluation. Hamilton points to all three interchanges funded largely by the infrastructure bank as proof of the county’s commitment to traffic improvements. Between the three, Hamilton said, York County committed to about $35 million in match funding. That money in addition to the $18 million spent on the Gold Hill exit.
“It really highlights the importance of this corridor,” Hamilton said.
This story was originally published September 26, 2022 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Driving between Fort Mill and Charlotte? A $64 million decision will improve the trip."
