‘It’s a parking lot’: Fort Mill residents tell why they need Pennies for Progress money
One awful traffic day may have sealed a spot on the next Pennies for Progress road projects list for a major Fort Mill project. But town residents say it’s the everyday traffic that makes their case.
Monique Nicoll said traffic routinely stalls on the Dobys Bridge Road corridor and neighborhoods there become cut-throughs. But the bigger concern is Fort Mill Parkway, which needs end-to-end widening. A two-lane stretch of road has three schools and fire station packed together, which make traffic unbearable during the school year.
“It’s a parking lot,” Nicoll said.
Dennis Getter is a 14-year resident. Getter doesn’t understand why U.S. 21 widening started on the northern end but hasn’t yet come to the southern stretch where the road crosses the Catawba River and leads to Rock Hill. Getter said a widened U.S. 21 is critical.
“There’s only one way to get over the bridge, over the river, if (interstate) 77 is down,” Getter said.
Town and county residents came to Catawba Ridge High School Wednesday night to make their cases for the next round road projects to be paid for with money from Pennies for Progress.
A citizens’ commission that will set the list of countywide roads continues its tour of the county for public input. Once a prioritized roads list with costs included is set, voters will decide in fall 2024 to approve or deny a 1% sales tax to fund the work.
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Fort Mill concerns vary.
There was the senior who said it can take 20 minutes getting out of his neighborhood. The truck driver concerned with narrow roads and fast cars beside Harris Street Park. The county resident who wondered if traffic was considered when new schools came to Pleasant Road. The neighbor who was bothered to see Catawba Ridge students walking to and from school in high traffic, with no sidewalks.
Yet most residents are in line with the top priorities submitted by the town.
“We could add another 30 on top of that,” said 31-year resident Scott Couchenour, “but I understand the budget process.”
U.S. 21 and Fort Mill Parkway
Pennies and other road funding groups have widened or are in the process of widening sections of both U.S. 21 and Fort Mill Parkway. The parkway, from U.S. 21 all the way up through Springfield Parkway toward Tega Cay, only exists because of the Pennies program voters started back in 1997.
Town officials and community members say Wednesday evening that widening new sections of U.S. 21 Bypass and Fort Mill Parkway are the biggest areas of concern.
“These are the roads with the highest traffic volumes,” said Penelope Karagounis, town planning director. “This would provide congestion relief that the community is asking for.”
There are other requests. The town wants a three-lane widening of North White Street with a roundabout at Old Nation Road. Clebourne Street needs pedestrian improvements including a new bridge over the railroad.
Then, there are resurfacing jobs. The town identified portions of Banks Road, Tom Hall Street, Academy Street and Main Street that need work.
“They are located on high-volume roads that serve as main arteries to our historic downtown,” Karagounis said.
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For U.S. 21 Bypass widening, many in the room Wednesday pointed to a day last fall during the first week of school. A wreck on I-77 shut down the interstate. Drivers poured onto the only other route across the Catawba River between Lake Wylie and Lancaster County — U.S. 21.
Former York County Council chairman Britt Blackwell now chairs the citizen commission that will pick Pennies roads. Blackwell recalls the trip from Charlotte to Rock Hill that took him half a day to complete.
“I don’t live in Fort Mill,” Blackwell said of traffic during the wreck last fall, “and I don’t ever want to see anything like that again.”
Getter said that day may not be commonplace, but it’s not unprecedented either. Wrecks happen on the interstate. There was the I-77 bridge resurfacing two years ago that shut down a section of the interstate for weeks. Just weeks ago a small section of I-77 in Rock Hill closed temporarily, sending traffic to U.S. 21.
The town requests widening of U.S. 21 Bypass from S.C. 160 to Sutton Road and Fort Mill Parkway.
Requested widening on Fort Mill Parkway would run from the railroad overpass at US Foods to Holbrook Road. It would extend widening work underway now from the last Pennies referendum, in 2017.
“We view these projects as absolutely essential,” said Fort Mill Economic Partners board member David Buist.
School traffic
Fort Mill has grown rapidly for decades. That growth puts pressure not only on roads, but on schools. As roads like Fort Mill Parkway opened it provided new options for new school sites.
Catawba Ridge and Nation Ford high schools opened along the town bypass created by Pennies, now called Fort Mill Parkway and Springfield Parkway. So did Banks Trail, Forest Creek, Fort Mill and Springfield middle schools. Doby’s Bridge, Fort Mill, River Trail, Riverview and Springfield elementary schools are on or just off the bypass.
More schools are now on or just off the bypass than aren’t, in Fort Mill.
“It’s sort of become the school parkway, and that can jam things up,” said Fort Mill School District board member Wayne Bouldin.
Bouldin discussed his own traffic issues Wednesday night, where he’s seen wrecks in front of his home in the Dobys Bridge Road area and it can take five minutes, he said, to get out of his driveway. Bouldin also said schools both create and suffer from traffic concerns. But the district had to put schools where land was available.
Scheduling bus routes is difficult with a constant need for more bus drivers. Buses have to take multiple trips, and traffic can throw off routes.
Getter said as bad as traffic gets during the school year, the roads don’t show the full picture. Getter points to Nation Ford on Springfield Parkway. Plenty of potential drivers aren’t on the road there.
“You just don’t even attempt to get out when the high school is coming and going,” Getter said.
Regional problem
Rock Hill’s traffic problems come from its size, as easily the largest municipality in this region south of Charlotte. Lake Wylie traffic is largely geographic, with a growing community often relying on single roads off of peninsulas.
Fort Mill is a combination of size and location.
“Fort Mill is a pass through for many, many other people,” said Mayor Guynn Savage. “It is a regional problem that Fort Mill has the traffic it has.”
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Rock Hill drivers go through Fort Mill to get to Charlotte. Indian Land, Tega Cay and other neighboring communities often have the most direct access to one another, through Fort Mill. Savage said the town does what it can. Like a sidewalk grant project already underway to address one resident’s concern Wednesday near Catawba Ridge.
“We look at safety,” Savage said. “We look at police reports for incidents that have taken place. We look at problems that have occurred on ancillary roads.”
But, Savage said, even opportunities like Pennies take time. Projects can take years or decades to complete. Which is why Fort Mill officials and residents want to make their cases now, when the next Pennies vote after 2024 won’t come for another seven years.
State Rep. Raye Felder said despite notable traffic concerns in Fort Mill and elsewhere in York County, the more than $1 billion in direct Pennies funding or related funding since 1997 should be celebrated even as the new list forms.
“The entire State of South Carolina is jealous of what York County has done,” Felder said.
For Fort Mill residents, the hope is more still can be done.
“All we can hope is we have good common sense and good priorities,” Getter said.
