On S.C. 90, new traffic signals, lights could come in 2022. But bigger fixes will take years
Horry County residents who live along or near S.C. 90 will have to wait years — likely until 2025 at the earliest — to see major improvements to the highway many say is dangerous and in bad need of an upgrade.
Smaller fixes, though, like new traffic signals and street lights along the corridor, could come as soon as next year.
A subcommittee of Horry County Council met Wednesday to discuss what short, medium and long-term fixes the county might pursue for Highway 90, a once-rural highway that runs from U.S. 501 Business in Conway to Robert Edge Parkway in North Myrtle Beach. The corridor has seen tremendous growth in recent years, and thousands of more homes are already planned for construction.
At the Highway 90 subcommittee’s meeting in October, Planning & Zoning Director David Jordan said the corridor currently has more than 8,200 homes, and that developers are planning to build an additional 6,700 in coming years, an 80% increase.
That growth is continuing to happen despite a rezoning moratorium the county has put in place for the corridor. That means that while county leaders plan to vote down any development requests for dense housing in the area, developers can still build under the current zoning status of their land. Much of the available land along S.C. 90 is zoned Commercial Forest Agriculture, a broad category that allows for stores, homes, churches and more. CFA zoning allows developers to build two homes per acre, or three townhomes per acre.
Residents living along the corridor have organized for nearly a year now to push Horry County to raise and widen parts of the road, which floods during heavy storms, leaving residents stuck in their homes without safe ways in or out. During the floods Hurricane Florence brought, for example, residents in the Tilly Swamp area were cut off from S.C. 90 and couldn’t leave home for days.
Major improvements, like raising several bridges over swamps and widening parts of the road to add travel lanes, are years away. The Grand Strand Area Transportation Survey, a local group that studies road and infrastructure projects, has agreed to conduct an engineering study of S.C. 90 and needed improvements, though the results of that study won’t be ready until 2024, county officials said Wednesday. Funding and constructing those improvements will take additional years.
County officials have estimated that isolated improvements to S.C. 90 could cost $200 million, while a full widening of the road could cost $500 million. Collecting such sums for the road won’t be easy. County leaders considered widening Highway 90 with funds from its RIDE III program, but dropped the project because it was too costly. State Sen. Greg Hembree (R-Little River) and state Rep. Tim McGinnis (R-Myrtle Beach) have said they’ll make an effort in the legislature next year to get $100 million in state funding for the project. Other funds for the project will likely come in the RIDE IV program, which the county hopes to begin in mid-2025.
In the meantime, the Highway 90 subcommittee decided to move forward on installing new traffic signals and street lights along the 20-mile corridor to improve the road’s safety while larger improvements wind their way through design, approval and funding processes.
One new traffic signal will be installed at the intersection of S.C. 90 and East Cox Ferry Road. Other signals the county could install could be built near the Solid Waste Authority’s landfill and the ramps to S.C. 22. The intersection of Highway 90 and S.C. 22 could also see new street lights installed. County leaders said Wednesday that such installations could improve safety on the road for residents.
“(East Cox Ferry Road) will be the first intersection that’s looked at there simply because it being the simplest, no realignments, no acquisition would have to be made on right-of-way,” County Council member R. Mark Causey, who chairs the subcommittee, said. “So then they’re just going to take it and move forward from there.”
It’s not yet clear how much it will cost the county to install the new traffic signals and street lights, though planners have estimated the county could spend $2 to $6 million on the short-term projects alone. Street lights could be one of the costlier parts of the plans, with lights at the S.C. 22 ramp costing $800,000 to install and $30,000 annually to keep on, and with lights at other intersections costing $400,000 to install and $60,000 annually to keep on.
Still, county leaders said Wednesday that they have some money available to spend on such fixes.
“We’ve got a little bit of money to do some of these low-hanging fruit but we do not have enough money, right now, to affect any major change there yet,” Assistant Administrator David Gilreath said.
April O’Leary and Felicia Soto, two residents on the subcommittee who have been involved in organizing residents around Highway 90 concerns, said their priority in the short term was keeping people safe until the county and the South Carolina Dept. of Transportation can complete major fixes. One complicating factor that could delay improvements is the fact that South Carolina controls S.C. 90, not Horry County, so all improvements will have to be done in conjunction with the state.
Soto said she worries that traffic accidents and fatalities will continue in the coming years until full improvements are complete. She cited several recent wrecks, one of which left an infant dead.
“What’s being done is we’re being left in danger for the next three to six years if we don’t address something,” she said. “We’re left on an island, we just can’t get to and from anywhere.”
Still, she added, she was happy to see the county move forward on minor safety improvements.
“It has to be a start, and if that’s the start then let it be,” she said. “Yeah, I would like the flood issues resolved but that’s not happening over night.”
Additional funding for S.C. 90 could come from leftover money from the county’s RIDE II program, though North Myrtle Beach has said it wants its share of the leftover money back. Other municipalities could make similar asks, meaning the $30 million left over could dwindle rapidly. The complicated funding issues for S.C. 90 prompted some discussion Wednesday of accelerating large-scale projects rather than pursuing smaller projects in the meantime, though committee members ultimately agreed that the corridor had immediate public safety needs the county should address.
Causey said he feels the county is moving in the right direction on Highway 90.
“We’re moving forward. We’re making some headway and the little things they make a lot of difference as well,” he said. “I think we’re moving in the right direction.”
This story was originally published December 8, 2021 at 2:55 PM.
