Carolina Forest is getting even more homes. Could new roads relieve the traffic?
Hundreds of new townhouses are approved and coming soon to Carolina Forest’s Postal Way, potentially exacerbating the heavy traffic on that road that residents already complain leaves them backed up at intersections for long periods of time.
But developers and county leaders hope several new road projects — two on Postal Way and another elsewhere in Carolina Forest — relieve some of the traffic pressure.
One of those road projects is associated with one of the townhome developments. Developers with Nest Communities won approval from the County Council on Tuesday to build 154 townhouses on two tracts of land between Postal Way and The Wizard Golf Club and said they plan to build a connecting road from Postal Way out to Highway 501. That connection would include a right-turn lane from Highway 501 onto the connection road, and a right-turn lane from the connection lane onto Highway 501. Drivers won’t be able to turn left from the connection road onto Highway 501, and no new traffic lights will be installed at the intersection.
In addition to those townhomes, County Council in early May approved 330 more townhouses — from developer DDC Engineers — along Postal Way, behind a section of the Tanger Outlets.
Together, those projects have Carolina Forest residents concerned that traffic they already view as nightmare-ish will only get worse. Traffic and density have emerged as key problems throughout the Carolina Forest area in recent years and decades as more and more people have moved to the area. Some of the problems stem from how the area was originally designed years ago, with commercial developments limited to either end of Carolina Forest Boulevard and River Oaks Drive with housing in the middle. That layout, plus the density of residents, has created several traffic-causing choke points at either end of the area.
“I’m not against development on Postal Way, I’m realistic, I know it’s going to happen,” Carolina Forest resident Debby Brooks told Council members on Tuesday. “I’m just asking you to do your due diligence and not aggravate a problem we already have until we have a solution to that first.”
In response to concerns like Brooks’, some county leaders hope that road projects in the area could alleviate some of the traffic. For one, as part of the county’s $600 million RIDE 3 road construction program, the county is working to extend Postal Way to Waccamaw Pines Drive, which would ultimately provide another connection to Highway 501. Jason Thompson, the manager of the RIDE 3 program, told Council members Tuesday that construction bids for that project will go out soon and that the new road could be completed about two years from now.
Council members on Tuesday also voted to approve a spending plan as part of next year’s budget that includes $75 million for a connecting road and interchange with Highway 31 elsewhere in Carolina Forest. That project would build a new road from Revolutionary War Way, off of Carolina Forest Boulevard, to a new interchange at Highway 31, and ultimately connecting to Augusta Plantation Drive, off of River Oaks Drive.
The county is paying for that project with part of a $147.5 million bond it’s financing with part of the hospitality fee money it’s now allowed to begin collecting again. That revenue stream has been tied up in a lawsuit between the county and Myrtle Beach since 2019, but, as of this spring, that case has settled meaning the city and county can again collect the fee. The hospitality fee is a 1.5% sales charge on restaurant meals, hotel stays and event tickets, and the county is allowed to keep whatever is collected from that fee in the unincorporated areas. In coming years, the county is expecting to collect around $15 million annually from the fee, and is using about one-third of it on the bond that will build the new Highway 31 interchange.
Put all together, some County Council members hope the new road projects ease the pressure of traffic in the Carolina Forest area.
“If you look at Postal Way, the hang up is always at the end of Carolina Forest Boulevard, said Council member Johnny Vaught, who represents the area. “That whole mess at the end of Carolina Forest Boulevard has become a parking lot. If you can get some of the traffic out of that area … if that new interchange alleviates some of that it will make a major difference.”
But Brooks said she’s not so sure the new projects will help, and especially not if the county keeps allowing new housing to be built in the area. Rather, she said, she’d like to see the county pause building in Carolina Forest until it catches up on the road and other infrastructure needs.
“That’s what I’m asking you to do: Wait until we have some kind of healing of Postal Way, wait ‘til that development — Carolina Forest Boulevard and the Postal Way enhancements — are completed before any other rezoning request on Postal Way is approved,” she asked Council members Tuesday.
The problem, Brooks explained, is that most of the residents in Carolina Forest want to travel east, to the beach, the cities, Highway 31 or the Tanger Outlets, not West to Conway or elsewhere. That means, she said, that the extensions of Postal Way to Highway 501 won’t help as much as county leaders hope.
“The car pile-up is cars heading east. That’s what a lot of it is,” she said.
The connection from Postal Way to Highway 501 near the new townhomes, she added, is “a useless road in my opinion. It doesn’t help at all.”
Thompson, too, said the new road projects would help with traffic but not fully eliminate the problem.
“It will provide an increased capacity but it will not eliminate the issue,” he explained to Council members. “It will be an improvement from what is currently being experienced today.”
