Historic home shifts multimillion-dollar York County road project

YORK COUNTY, S.C. — A road-widening project in York County, which will cost millions of dollars, is expected to have a major impact on traffic in a rapidly growing area.  On Wednesday night, the community was encouraged to come to a Q&A session to learn more about the effort.

More than 17,000 vehicles travel Highway 557 each day and thanks to the explosive growth in the Lake Wylie area, plenty of drivers don’t like it.

"I try to avoid driving (highways) 557 and 49 between here and the county line because the are times of the day it's just bumper-to-bumper," said Earl Jenkins, who drives it all the time.

The road should have been widened a decade ago, according to traffic count recommendations from the Department of Transportation.

York County's one-cent sales tax, Pennies for Progress, is beginning the project that's been on their radar since 2003.

Patrick Hamilton oversees Pennies for Progress, and he said the project was first put on the list in 2003 but other projects took priority. It was added again in 2010, but engineers realized it needed to be bigger.

"We got into the design are we're, like, ‘Wow! That's got to be a five-lane road,’" Hamilton said.

The county will widen Highway 557 from two to five lanes between Highway 49, where the Lowe's and Food Lion stores are, and Kingsburry Road, which is about 2 miles

At Wednesday's meeting, residents learned about a sudden change. A century-old homestead sits above the highway.

Since it's protected as a historic site, the new road will have to shift more than 100 feet from where it was going to go and will include changing the location of a five-lane bridge. Government projects are not permitted to disturb any site that qualifies for the National Register of Historic Places, even if the site is currently not listed on the register.

Also, the road won't be five lanes all the way to Clover at Highway 55, as many hoped. It will be three lanes.

[York County votes 'yes' on Pennies for Progress plan to improve roads]

Hamilton said the widening is critical closer to Lake Wylie and not toward Clover because traffic counts drop to about 7,600 vehicles a day further west.

"Less than half of the volume is on that part of (Highway) 557, so you're talking that traffic would need to double before a five-lane (road) would really be warranted," he said.

Currently, project planners are working on getting right-of-way acquisition from landowners. Construction should start in about one year and take two to three years to finish.

Cox Media Group