We’ve been waiting on the Richland County Penny to deliver on this project for our area for more than a decade!
I decided to get an update on this local project last week. Still wish this was a state project but, well, Richland won’t let state take over. Years ago, in my role as your representative at the state level, I stepped in and asked a state agency, the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT), to take over this project from Richland County. SCDOT agreed to my request and they proceeded to make the formal request to the county so that the project could move forward under the state agency’s guidance instead of waiting on the county to manage. What happened? The county told SCDOT “NO”. That surprised me and I then asked SCDOT if that had that ever happened in other parts of the state before. SCDOT told me “No, sir, Mr. Ballentine. We do this all the time in other parts of the state”
Wow! That meant we are stuck waiting for Richland County to deliver on their Richland County Penny Tax project. And that’s still where we are today.
In my words, simply put, here are my takeaways from the meeting I had with the county last week:
* There were more than 100 right of way/acquisitions along the route that had to be addressed and most of those have now been completed (if you are impacted and still waiting on your check, please let me or our local county councilman, Jason Branham, know).
* We should see “dirt moving” in Spring 2025. The dirt moves first starting at Exit 101 and heading up Broad River towards Royal Tower Road
* We’ll first see “telephone poles moved” and then “lanes cut”
* As that section moves forward to completion, work will move up Broad River and continue following the same patter (telephone poles, lanes)
* There is a pending issue with a ‘water line’ under the road which still needs to be resolved. Long story short, the county is hoping to NOT have to cut the line as that could lead to problems down the road
* A traffic signal at Farming Creek Road will be installed sometime before Spring 2025
* The project is still slated to go up to the “Chicfila intersection” (BUT originally was to go all the way up to Exit 97 at I26….it was de-scoped earlier and I will push to have that added since the county will have BILLIONS of dollars now with voters approving the penny tax again
* The county let businesses along that area (think “restaurant row”…Wendy’s Biscuitville, etc) know the widening is coming so that there SHOULD NOT be issues (right of way) when construction gets to that point
* When the “lanes are cut”, there’s gonna be some headaches for us…of course, between the Peak construction and the highway construction….and the traffic backups…we are kinda used to that already
For now, that’s the latest I’ve been told. I’ll continue to check in on the county and have told county officials if they run into any delays that I can assist at the state level, to let me know and it is my priority to help them finish what they should have finished years ago for us!
You should have pushed SCDOT to put in interstate access and exits when they were widening the interstate. That would have relieved some of the pressure on Broad River.
Nothing the MOST corrupt county in SC does surprises me. I still can’t believe the gullible voters voted for yet another penny tax after the misappropriation of the last one. Broad River Road is hell incarnate, and I avoid it as much as I can by going down Western Lane.