Mass transit? A pedestrian flyover? New ideas offered for York County road tax money

York County voters get one shot this decade to approve new roads that could ease traffic problems. Yet a leading transportation expert suggests that the county should consider thinking beyond just new roads.

This wouldn’t be the first time.

What began a quarter century ago as money to build new roads or widen busy ones in York County has since added intersections and resurfaced roads.

Now, a pedestrian flyover bridge near I-77 and planning for future mass transit are two ways Pennies for Progress could move in a new direction.

David Hooper heads the Rock Hill-Fort Mill Area Transportation Study. The organization allocates federal road money throughout urbanized eastern York County and the Lancaster County panhandle. Hooper offered his suggestions Wednesday night in Rock Hill for how Pennies for Progress can improve traffic when its referendum comes in 2024.

As large new business announcements, residential subdivisions and other growth pressures dot York County, Hooper said there’s a need to find, and fund, projects that make a regional impact.

“We’re making planning decisions for an area that’s literally changing before our eyes,” Hooper said.

What is Pennies for Progress?

Pennies for Progress is a one-cent sales tax that lasts seven years. York County voters narrowly approved the first one, the first in the state, in 1997. Voters have to approve each new one for Pennies to continue. There have been four Pennies campaigns.

Collection on the most recent Pennies campaign, approved in 2017, expires at the end of April 2025. A fall 2024 referendum will ask voters whether to begin collection May 1, 2025 on a new seven-year program.

To get there, a six-member citizen commission will hear countywide input and propose a project list, and York County Council will decide whether to proceed as a referendum — in full. Council can’t make changes to the project list that the commission sets.

“It’s either all or nothing,” said Patrick Hamilton, who runs the Pennies program for York County.

The commission meeting Wednesday night in Rock Hill follows one in Tega Cay, with others set for sites across the county.

RFATS projects

Hooper’s traffic modeling map shows several red lines where congestion is worst now in York County. High-traffic corridors in Fort Mill, Rock Hill, Lake Wylie and beyond have stall points. A 2050 projection colors the map further.

“Every major corridor is red,” Hooper said.

Hooper offered several projects Wednesday night that could add to existing RFATS and state-funded projects to help people move faster, in the safest, most efficient way.

They proposed projects include:

▪ The U.S. 21 corridor in Fort Mill needs widening completed to five lanes, from S.C. 160 south to the Catawba River and Rock Hill. The highway serves massive points of county interest from Kingsley, Baxter, the S.C. 160 area and Fort Mill Parkway traffic in Fort Mill to Riverwalk at the edge of Rock Hill.

“This seems to be exceedingly logical,” Hooper said.

The U.S. 21 corridor also is the designated preferred alternative — transportation language for the likeliest spot — for future mass transit to connect Rock Hill, Fort Mill and Charlotte. Right-of-way acquisition alone on a wider footprint in the area could help with future transit work. The road already is an alternative to I-77, and stalled several times in recent years due to spillover traffic when large wrecks or delays occurred on the interstate.

“This is the first option for people on I-77 when they have challenges,” Hooper said.

▪ The S.C. 160 interchange at I-77 already has funding and will add flyover bridges with a new directional interchange. Hooper asked the Pennies commission to consider a new pedestrian flyover bridge across S.C. 160. Hooper put an “absolute guess” price tag at perhaps $10 million. A pedestrian bridge would be a new type of Pennies project.

Kingsley has major employers Lash Group, LPL Financial and others on one side of the highway and Domtar, with others, on the opposite side. Baxter is nearby. There’s a new hospital too. Hooper said he sometimes hears from businesses who say employees won’t go to lunch at Kingsley because they can’t get out and back in an hour, because of traffic.

A pedestrian bridge could help reduce vehicle traffic.

“One thing is trying to move more people by never getting into a vehicle,” Hooper said.

RFATS could partner with Pennies, on a pedestrian improvement that naturally would partner with the roughly $90 million in interchange upgrades already planned. Hooper said a pedestrian bridge also would serve as an identifiable feature for the area when growth maxes out.

“At some point it’s going to stop, and we’re going to have to look around and say, what have we built?” Hooper said. “Because we own it. And that goes to the quality of life.”

▪ York County recently added new public transit options to serve the Fort Mill, Tega Cay and Lake Wylie areas. Rock Hill has its MyRide bus service. Hooper asked for consideration of improvements for the S.C. 160 corridor to prepare it for future public transit.

“It too is going to expand over time,” Hooper said.

Features like improved bicycle or pedestrian lanes are options, as transit riders often connect that way. Space for future transit features also could help with area businesses looking to attract talent, Hooper said.

“We’re thinking a few steps ahead,” he said.

▪ The Exit 77 interchange in Rock Hill needs upgrades that Hooper said could cost $7 million-$9 million. The U.S. 21, Anderson Road exit is next in line with ongoing or coming I-77 work at Carowinds, Kingsley/Baxter, Cherry/Celanese and what would have been the Panthers headquarters site.

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The Gold Hill Road interchange recently got its upgrade.

Hooper said it could be a decade or more before Exit 77 gets RFATS funding given commitments, some of them close to $100 million, to larger projects. The comparatively small price tag for Exit 77 could make it a good fit for Pennies, Hooper said.

“We don’t want this one to fall through the cracks,” he said.

▪ RFATS put together a corridor study on S.C. 49 in Lake Wylie. Hooper recommended some of those improvements for the almost four-mile stretch from Buster Boyd Bridge to Three Points. Buster Boyd is one of three critical crossings of Lake Wylie or the Catawba River, along with I-77 and U.S. 21 farther south.

“How this corridor functions matters,” Hooper said. “A great deal.”

Gaston County in North Carolina has ongoing work that could add a bridge from New South Hope Road to I-485. That would connect Gaston and Meckleburg counties with access to the airport and other parts of Charlotte. That project would change traffic dramatically in the area, including increased demand on Pole Branch Road where Pennies recently finished work.

“It’s just a matter of how much,” Hooper said.

Signals, collector roads and area specific widening are addressed in the corridor study.

▪ The Dobys Bridge Road area of Fort Mill is a key connection, along with S.C. 160, between Fort Mill and Indian Land. The Lancaster County panhandle has had growth even beyond what Fort Mill, Lake Wylie and Tega Cay have the past decade or longer.

Hooper said widening Dobys Bridge to five lanes would help manage existing and coming growth as more drivers look to bypass S.C. 160.

“This feeds into a lot of things in a high-growth area,” Hooper said.

York, Clover and the west

Catawba Regional Council of Governments serves a similar function on the more rural, western half of York County to what RFATS does on the east side. Yet scaled for size, many parts of western York County are growing at high to unprecedented rates.

Stephen Allen is planning director and transportation manager for CRCOG. Allen also has a long history of planning work for York County.

A recent traffic model showed two red corridors out west, Allen said. One is a one-block stretch in downtown York. The other, between Smyrna and Hickory Grove, already has a Pennies project underway.

“Road widenings are not necessarily the biggest priority on the western side of York County,” Allen said. “It’s safety.”

Allen recommended two widening jobs and six intersection improvements. All are lower cost options compared to bigger jobs in eastern York County, but Allen said they would improve sight lines or angles to make roads safer. Several area intersections on the west side weren’t built to current traffic standards.

“Many of your intersections are relics,” Allen said. “These are historic cities and we have historic infrastructure.”

Suggested widening work includes S.C. 55 from Rockford Way to Clinton Avenue just east of downtown Clover, and U.S. 321 Main or Main Street in Clover from Flatrock to Marion streets.

Three U.S. 321 intersections are recommended: Johnson/Devinney roads; West Liberty Street; and Alexander Love Highway. So are intersections at Old North Main Street and U.S. 321, and at Memorial Drive and Clinton Avenue in Clover. York has its Old Limestone and Meadow roads intersection listed.

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The case for, against Pennies

Barely more than half of voters approved the first Pennies campaign. Increased taxation is a common concern.

Early Pennies campaigns faced cost overruns and projects were pushed from one campaign to the next. The county pivoted to bring the Pennies program in-house. Even the most recent Pennies vote in 2017 included $60 million for carryover jobs from the prior campaign.

The first Pennies vote put almost $100 million on the ballot. Final costs were $190 million that included grants and federal funding. The state infrastructure bank approved a $178 million grant after the 1997 campaign with $132 million for interstate widening and the rest to cover Pennies shortfalls.

Though Pennies officials and area road experts have acknowledged funding and delay issues in the past, they also point to some of the same periods as reasons to support a new Pennies for Progress vote.

York County had minimal road money coming from the state for decades before Pennies, experts say. Pennies allowed the county to leverage tax money to get additional state and federal funding for larger projects.

That’s why after four campaigns, York County now has about $1 billion in Pennies or related road funding invested. And why counties statewide have copied the Pennies for Progress model.

Former York County Council Chairman Britt Blackwell is now chairman of the citizen committee that will make the new Pennies list. Blackwell points to past votes, where approval has grown from barely half to more than 80% at its peak. Blackwell said Pennies has been one of the most successful programs ever in York County.

“It’s the life of the county, the road infrastructure,” Blackwell said. “Citizens have recognized that.”

Hamilton said people new to the area probably don’t know that before Pennies, many roads that now move considerable traffic were small country roads.

The first Pennies campaign took on widening from I-77 to S.C. 160 in Fort Mill, S.C. 161 and S.C. 5 in western York County, U.S. 274 in Lake Wylie and Herlong/India Hook in Rock Hill.

“Now they are the major thoroughfares throughout the county,” Hamilton said.

The other case for Pennies, experts say, relates to those colored maps Hooper referenced.

“Not everyone who’s coming here is here yet,” Hooper said. “We’ve got more (people) coming.”