These are the busiest roads in the Myrtle Beach area. How much traffic do they get?
The Myrtle Beach is full of roads that get infamously busy.
Locals and tourists love to hate on U.S. 501 and what turns into miles of stop-and-go traffic during rush hour. But there are other busy spots, such as S.C. 90 where the two lanes are not enough to support the ballooning housing developments and U.S. 17, the main roadway through Myrtle Beach.
The South Carolina Department of Transportation keeps data on certain roadways, gathering certain information on highways over the course of several months or for a handful of days.
The Sun News used only points of roadways that had a large dataset.
Looking at the data, here are the five busiest roadways, from lowest to highest, in the Myrtle Beach area, with an honorable mention.
Honorable mention: U.S. 17 from Socastee Boulevard to U.S. 501
This section of U.S. 17 which runs next to the Myrtle Beach International Airport had to get an honorable mention. SCDOT data shows an average of 78,800 cars drive on the road every day. While this should make it the top road, the data used is sparse compared to other roads.
SCDOT collected information from Aug. 9 to 12, 2022, making it difficult to gauge the total. Overall, it remains a busy street but without reliable data, it remains an honorable mention.
5. U.S. 17 Bypass from Georgetown County and Horry County line to S.C. 544
Running from the Surfside Beach area to Murrells Inlet, this portion of U.S. 17 Bypass is a higher-speed route than U.S. 17. SCDOT data shows it has an average of 36,500 drivers on the road every day.
4. S.C. 544 from West Cox Ferry Road to S.C. 814
This part of S.C. 544 connects the southern Myrtle Beach area to Coastal Carolina University. It sees a mean of 37,300 vehicles daily, SCDOT data shows.
Over the past 10 years, traffic on S.C. 544 has not increased despite the population boom that impact U.S. 501, which also connects Myrtle Beach to Conway and Coastal Carolina University.
3. S.C. 31 from S.C. 22 to S.C. 9
As one of the only controlled-access highways in the Myrtle Beach area, S.C. 31 gains a lot of traffic. An average of 47,700 vehicles drive from S.C. 22 to Robert Grissom Parkway every day while 37,100 travel from Robert Grissom Parkway to S.C. 9 daily, according to SCDOT data.
This nearly eight-mile track of roadway runs through a large portion of North Myrtle Beach.
2. U.S. 501 from S.C. 31 to the S.C. 544 Overpass
This is one of the most dreaded strips of roadway in the Grand Strand. As one of the main routes inland from Myrtle Beach, it also connects the popular Carolina Forest neighborhood and Conway to the beach.
On average the five miles of road gets 54,300 people every day, according to SCDOT. The number of people on the road has grown slower than other streets in the Myrtle Beach area. Compared to 2019, there are 1,100 more people on the roadway.
1. S.C. 31 from Robert Grissom Parkway to S.C. 22
In another stretch of S.C. 31, SCDOT data shows an average of 58,800 vehicles drive on the roughly six-mile stretch of highway every day. This makes it the busiest roadway in Horry County and the greater Myrtle Beach area.
Use of S.C. 31 has increased significantly in the past decade. Over 10,000 more cars used this section of S.C. 31 in 2024 than in 2021.
