A Dorchester County road project is one 12 transpotation projects named a finalist for the 2021 America’s Transportation Awards competition.

The South Carolina Department of Transportation’s SC 61 Rural Road Safety Project - Phase One was one of 80 nationwide transportation projects considered for the award, according to the ATA website.

The project improved safety to a 6.5 mile corridor along historic SC 61, according to an SCDOT press release.

The roadway is a National Scenic Byway home to Middleton Place Plantation, Magnolia Plantation and Gardens and Drayton Hall. However, as the area’s population has grown in recent years, it became a target of SCDOT’s Rural Road Safety Program following a singificant increase in crash, injury and fatality rates, the release says. In 2019, SCDOT engineers developed a safety improvement plan for a section along the highway, with help from public comments.

The project saw a new roadbed and pavement, wider lanes with a three-foot paved shoulder, center and outside edge rumble strips and more signage and paint markings to increase visibility along the stretch, the release says. During the project, engineers preserved the historic live oak trees that make a canopy over the highway.

“SC 61 - Phase 1 was an exceptional project designed by a team that listened to the concerns of the public,” Secretary of Transportation Christy Hall said in SCDOT’s release. “The goals of providing a much safer roadway for motorists, while preserving the beauty of this historic Lowcountry landscape were both achieved. I’d like to express my gratitude to our design team and the community members who helped tailor this work that resulted in an award-winning project.”

As a finalist for the America’s Transporation Awards, the project could win the Grand Prize — which is determined by a panel of independent judges and experts throughout the transporation industry — or the People’s Choice Awards, which the public can vote for online at www.AmericasTransportationAwards.org, according to the release. Winners of both awards will win a $10,000 cash prize that can be donated to a charity or transporation-related scholarship fund.

The People’s Choice Award will be selected via online voting through Oct. 25.

America’s Transportation Awards competition is sponsored by the American Association of Transportation and Highway Officials, the American Automobile Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

SUMMERVILLE — Between North Charleston and Summerville, traffic along Dorchester Road often comes to frequent standstills as thousands of drivers make their return home after work.

In the next couple of years, there will be even more people and cars here, and even more questions around the future of getting around.

“If they choose not to take the interstate, it’s the only way to come in,” said Stafa Elton, a Summerville resident who frequents the road to get to good fishing locations in town.

Dorchester Road runs for nearly 20 miles and is filled with connections to housing developments, businesses, Joint Base Charleston and the Ashley River. Those who want to avoid Interstate 26 often end up on the parallel road.

Dorchester County has recently flagged the area around Summerville’s portion of the road as a space for reinvestment. The goal is to entice more private businesses and property owners to move to the area.

Though North Charleston said it is pretty much maxed out with planned residential projects around the corridor, the commercial Cedar Grove Shopping Center project is planned along Dorchester Road. The city has also been trying to get a handle on the impacts of cut-through traffic as drivers use shorter streets to avoid Dorchester Road gridlock.

It’s all a side effect of a boom in population as more people make the Lowcountry their home. The state Department of Transportation is mapping improvements on Dorchester Road to help with its daily and future traffic issues. Some of the proposed work includes raised medians, left-turn improvements and turning-lane extensions where possible.

Where it gets complicated is having to buy private property for additional lanes. The biggest accident concerns have been around left turns on the road, according to officials.

But driving down Dorchester, there’s also still plenty of space and for-sale signs indicating room for even more businesses and housing developments to be considered.

“I’m just so excited,” said Alpa Patel, owner of Glam Salon and Spa just off of Dorchester Road in the Village at Coosaw shopping complex in North Charleston. She recently moved her business to a space in the complex closer to Dorchester Road for more exposure.

“My business has just grown up,” she said.

For some residents, the growth is welcomed. Michael Kahn, a 10-year resident of Summerville, said he hopes it will feed the creation of more local businesses. He lives near Dorchester Road and said he believes growth is going to happen whether people like it or not.

“If some local people want to open something down here, that’s better for us,” he said.

Jill and Heath Forbes opened their ax-throwing business — Lumber Jill’s — in Summerville’s Oakbrook area off Dorchester Road because they said they saw a need for more family-oriented activities. It sits in a small cluster of various businesses. Next to it is a thrift store and pizza shop. Across the street, there’s the Magnolia Dance Academy and several fast-food chains.

“For us to be in this area it’s been good,” said Emily Lawson, a longtime Lumber Jill’s employee. “This area needed something like this.”

Dorchester County is looking at the space around the Summerville side of Dorchester Road at Oakbrook as an opportunity for reinvestment. An Oakbrook tax increment financing district was created as a way to fund the redevelopment.

With a TIF district, when property values rise, that change in value is used to pay off all of the bonds used for redevelopment projects. The overall goal is to encourage more businesses to invest in the area following $35 million in development projects.

For example, Dorchester County is using the funds to build a major athletic complex. Ideally it would encourage people like the Forbeses to open more businesses around it because there will be more people moving around in the area to get to the complex.

The town is also planning a more than $6 million park around what is now the Herbert H. Jessen Boat Landing. Around $2 million will come from the TIF. The park will be more than 40 acres and is less than a mile from Lumber Jills.

Some of the new amenities will include an improved boardwalk, restrooms, nature trails and a multipurpose building. The only way to get to the park involves driving down or crossing Dorchester Road.

Rebecca Vance, the Summerville town administrator, said many residents often aren’t aware the road runs parallel with the Ashley River.

“There are tons of people who drive down Dorchester Road,” she said.

Christopher Davis, owner of Raptor Comics and Collectibles in Oakbrook, said the area was nothing but woods when he was younger. Davis said he appreciates the attention given to the Oakbrook community because it has room for more.

His comic shop is surrounded by open and empty retail space.

“It has the potential, it has the capacity,” he said.

Summerville is attempting to pin down a traffic engineer to manage some of the Dorchester Road growth. What makes the street so complicated is that a lot of businesses and food chains sit right next to it.

“It’s really backed up all of the time,” Elton said. “It’s bad.”

According to town officials, any widening attempts would mean buying land from businesses such as fast-food chains. Because of this, regulating the traffic is the next option. That involves getting an engineer who can organize advanced traffic signaling to help with vehicle flow.

In order for DOT to install the advanced signaling, an engineer has to be there to maintain it. According to Vance, those advanced signaling improvements on Dorchester Road would be a joint effort between Summerville, the county and North Charleston.

North Charleston has felt the impacts of increased traffic along the Dorchester Road corridor.

An indication of cut-through commuters was shown in a city analysis that revealed 60 percent of traffic in front of Joseph Pye Elementary school, located off Patriot Boulevard, came from Dorchester Road, said City Councilman Ron Brinson. The rush-hour gridlock outside the school was a safety issue because it potentially hindered emergency response vehicles, he said.

Congestion hasn’t been as much of an issue during the pandemic, but the city expects those traffic levels to return at some point as people use alternative routes to avoid the congested Dorchester Road thoroughfare.

“It’s not surprising when you think about it,” Brinson said.

More cars have also increased wear and tear on infrastructure. Wescott and Patriot boulevards, shorter streets near Dorchester Road, were recently repaved by the city earlier than previously expected because of the roads’ high use.

Now, North Charleston is grappling with whether to widen the roads. But instead of improving traffic flow, adding more lanes could have an adverse effect by inviting more cars, Brinson said.

“That’s something we’ve asked the community to give us their thinking,” Brinson said.

More development is underway that could increase traffic along the Dorchester Road corridor.

Just south of Wescott Boulevard near Riverbluff Parkway, land is being cleared for the Cedar Grove Shopping Center that will include several nationally known retailers, including Lidl, PetSmart, Ross Dress for Less, HomeGoods, Five Below and Ulta Beauty.

Ken McCunsey, president of the White Hall Property Owners Association, said the new complex is an encouraging addition to the community.

Though there are some in the neighborhood who’d prefer that the 65-acre tract along Dorchester Road remain undeveloped, McCunsey said he thinks most people in the 750-home subdivision welcome new opportunities for shopping.

“I think the overall feeling is pretty positive,” he said.

The main concern among the community is traffic.

The road gets congested several times during the day and McCunsey would like to see it widened. Charleston County has plans to add lanes to the corridor, but Dorchester County does not.

DORCHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – A road safety project in Dorchester County is a finalist for a national award.

The South Carolina Department of Transportation announced Friday its SC 61 Rural Road Safety Project, Phase I in Dorchester County, has been named a finalist in the 2021 America’s Transportation Awards competition.

SCDOT leaders say the project is one of the “Top 12” projects across the nation competing for the two highest awards in the program: The Grand Prize and the People’s Choice Award.

The SC 61 Rural Road Safety Project – Phase I became eligible for the honors in August of 2021 when it was named a winner in the “Operations Excellence” category in the first round of the competition.

This project is part of SCDOT’s Rural Road Safety Program in the agency’s Strategic 10-Year Plan to Rebuild SC’s Roads & Bridges.

“SCDOT engineers developed a safety improvement plan in 2019 for Phase I, a 6.5-mile corridor,” said Robert Kudelka with SCDOT. “Following a public meeting, SCDOT staff reviewed hundreds of comments and suggestions submitted by members of numerous historic preservation and conservation groups.”

He said the major concern was a loss of the centuries-old oak trees that create the road canopy and other scenic features. The plan was refined using the comments provided by the public and the special interest groups.

The result was a new roadbed and pavement, wider lanes with three-foot paved shoulder, center and outside edge rumble strips and more signage and paint markings to increase visibility. “Safety was greatly enhanced and not one of the large oak trees was removed,” said Kudelka.

“SC 61 – Phase I was an exceptional project designed by a team that listened to the concerns of the public. The goals of providing a much safer roadway for motorists, while preserving the beauty of this historic Lowcountry landscape were both achieved. I’d like to express my gratitude to our design team and the community members who helped tailor this work that resulted in an award-winning project,” said Secretary of Transportation Christy Hall.

SCDOT leaders say the grand prize will be determined by a panel of independent of judges and experts within the transportation industry.

The People’s Choice Award will be selected through online voting beginning Friday, September 24, 2021, through 11:59 p.m. on Monday, October 25, 2021. Votes can be cast at www.AmericasTransportationAwards.org.

The winners of both awards include a $10,000 cash prize that can be donated to a charity or transportation-related scholarship fund as chosen by the winners. The awards competition is sponsored by the American Association of Transportation & Highway Officials (AASHTO), The American Automobile Association (AAA) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

RIDGEVILLE — As residents raise concerns over increased traffic and road damage in the area, state transportation officials are honing in on fixing some of the state’s most dangerous rural roads.

The S.C. Department of Transportation is planning to improve the safety around a nine-mile portion of U.S. Highway 17A in Ridgeville.

At a recent public meeting on Oct. 12, DOT officials walked residents through the road project planned along the highway between the Colleton County line and the Ashley River bridge in Dorchester County.

The goal is to reduce the frequency of run-off-the-road crashes along US-17A.

The project is a part of what the department is referring to as the Rural Roads Safety Program. It’s a 10-year initiative that was approved in 2017 and is funded yearly by the statewide gas tax. It receives $50 million a year in funding.

The program involves taking rural roads in the state with the highest frequency of fatal and severe injuries from run-off-the-road crashes and making them safer.

Nearly 60 percent of all fatal crashes in the state happen on rural roads, according to DOT. Around 30 percent of the crashes on rural roads happen on the 1,900 miles of highway selected for the Rural Roads Safety Program. SCDOT has over 41,000 miles in its road network.

“We selected the worst of the worst roads,” said Bryan Jones, a DOT project manager.

Between 2011 and 2015, Jones said there were 16 fatal or severe injury crashes along US-17A in Ridgeville.

This ranked it sixth out of the entire road safety program. In the last five years, Jones said those number of crashes has increased to 24.

“If the road was ranked today, it would be ranked number one,” he said.

Officials said they wanted the improvements to keep vehicles on the roads or allow them the opportunity to stop or get back on the road if they run off.

Some of the proposed improvements for US-17A include paving and widening shoulders, flattening roadside slopes, adding brighter and wider pavement markings and adding rumble stripes to the center and edge lines of the road.

In spaces where roadside slopes are too steep, guard rails will also be added. Overall, officials said residents can expect to see 10-foot shoulders added along the highway.

That includes four feet of paved shoulder and six feet of earth shoulder. Officials said they expect that to reduce the number of vehicles crashing off of the road.

“They can’t recover because the shoulders are too narrow,” said Tré Dugal, an employee with Ramey Kemp Associates, an engineering firm hired by DOT to handle the US-17A project.

When construction does kick off in the area, one of the first things officials said residents will notice is the cutting of trees. In most fatal accidents, drivers ran into stationary objects, Jones said.

DOT will accept comments on the project until Oct. 27. Residents can send comments via email to Jones at [email protected] or submit them through the projects website at scdotgis.online/US17ARRSP2.

James Hopkins is a lifelong resident of Ridgeville and member of Canaan United Methodist Church, located down the street from US-17A.

“It used to be a quiet little road, not anymore,” he said.

Because of the increased traffic from construction trucks and the growth in the area from new housing developments, Hopkins said, the safety improvements are long overdue.

There are a lot of areas where roadside slopes are too steep, so the guardrails will be welcomed, he said.

“I think it’s something good to have,” said Morris Green, another Canaan United Methodist member. “It’s good for the community.”

Residents said they also hope that eventually more street lights will be placed and some flood mitigation will be installed around the nearby Old Beech Hill Road.

The expected completion date for the current US-17A project is between late 2022 and spring 2023.

DORCHESTER COUNTY, SC (WCIV) — Education and revitalization.

That's two things Dorchester County officials are hoping comes to the Oakbrook area.

The newest Trident Technical College opened on Dorchester Road today.

"You are standing in the best looking big lots on the entire planet," said Mary Thornley, the President of Trident Technical College.

The technical college opened its brand new 28,000 square foot facility.

It's all a part of the county's plan to revitalize the Oakbrook area.

"We want to provide opportunities for all citizens. Citizens of the county, town, North Charleston, the surrounding area. So they can take advantage of the wealth and prosperity that is coming to the community," said Jason Ward, the Dorchester County Administrator.

Right now, Dorchester County is the largest county in South Carolina without a technical college campus.

That will change when classes begin at the new campus.

Registration begins June 1.

"People will be able to walk to it, people will be able to catch public transit to it. But it's in the community. It's something they can really embrace and be part of," said Ward.

One thing the Vice President of Education at Trident Technical College said was a priority for the building is modern technology.

All furniture in the building can move for active learning.

The new school features spacious classrooms, interactive labs and support services for students.

President Mary Thornley said one field they are most excited about is HVAC.

She said the demand for HVAC is growing in the Lowcountry.

"They make very good salaries. The workers currently in that field are too few and getting older. Each day, they are getting older," said Thornley.

Another important field? Medical.

"The next best thing is to have incredible anatomy and physiology labs. Those are pre-requisites for most health and nursing programs," said Thornley.

The school is hoping the new building will inspire those who are searching for something new.

Whether that's heading back to school, getting a better job or even changing career fields.

"When you get involved in public service, these are the kind of things you want to see happen. It's not about getting your name put on things. It's about having facilities that people are going to be able to take advantage of," said Bill Hearn, the chairman of Dorchester County Council.