Will the biggest road job in this area of York County be big enough? Time to study.
Lake Wylie residents waited years for what’s under construction now, one of the biggest road improvements in decades for that area.
But will it be big enough?
David Hooper, director with the Rock Hill-Fort Mill Area Transportation Study, outlined the need in his group’s Jan. 24 policy committee meeting for a Lake Wylie area transportation study. With growth already happening and projected in Lake Wylie, and a major road project in North Carolina that could bring more cut-through traffic, Hooper set sights on Pole Branch Road.
“We’re almost certainly going to have to go back and revisit what it was originally conceived as being, which was a complete five-lane road,” Hooper said.
York County voters approved a Pennies for Progress cent sales tax for roads referendum back in 2011 that included Pole Branch work. Initial discussions were to widen to five lanes. The $37.8 million project under construction now widens only to three lanes for part of the project, five lanes for another section.
A decade ago talk of five lanes came amid North Carolina work toward an $800 million Garden Parkway project connecting Gastonia to Charlotte. The idea was more drivers would use that route compared to the S.C. 49 corridor. When Garden Parkway momentum fizzled, the idea of five lanes for the full length of Pole Branch did too.
Now, Hooper said he’s been asked to sit on a steering committee for Catawba Crossings.
“They brought one part of it back,” he said. “They kept the bridge component.”
Catawba Crossing would run parallel to S.C. 49. It would put bridges from New South Hope Road near Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden across the Belmont peninsula, ending just south of Charlotte Douglas International Airport. For now, it doesn’t appear Catawba Crossing will meet the same fate as the Garden Parkway.
“This looks like it is on a strong foundation,” Hooper said.
The impact to Pole Branch will be significant if that road happens, he said. It won’t just be Lake Wylie drivers using Pole Branch but Charlotte drivers looking to bypass Buster Boyd Bridge or other access points to the north. That impact will come to an intersection at Pole Branch that already has congestion issues to consider as Lake Wylie grows.
“This is just above that one central intersection, the intersection that everyone essentially has to go through,” Hooper said. “You add that kind of capacity, you’re going to draw driver demand.”
Congested corridor
The RFATS transportation corridor study approved for Lake Wylie at the Jan. 24 meeting came after Hooper and other road leaders met late last year with several state legislators, he said. A fatal wreck on S.C. 49 prompted concern for how to make roads safer.
“Highway 49 may have developed over time as a more relaxed environment, more of retirees, and been a different type of area,” Hooper said. “But it’s really transitioned to being a heavily congested corridor.”
Hooper said there was a planning tradeoff made as the area developed. Like other areas overlooking water, Lake Wylie has a main road with many branches that don’t otherwise connect.
“You get cul-de-sac streets or where it just kind of comes in and you get the nice view overlooking the water,” Hooper said. “But it ultimately comes back out to the major corridor with one entry point, sometimes a second.”
That setup might work when the area is River Hills and a few restaurants or businesses. Now, there’s much more.
“You’ve got some concentrated commercial, big box retail here,” Hooper said of S.C. 49. “You’ve got developments obviously on both sides, nice lots overlooking the lake. And you’ve got a number of restaurants all along this corridor as well.”
A series of peninsulas on the lake also create north-south issues.
“Here you’ve got one major corridor for north-south movement, 274,” Hooper said. “You’ve got 49 here which is substantially built out, 557 to the west and then Pole Branch Road up to the state line. You’ve got more limited options.”
Traffic now in Lake Wylie often looks like one might expect much closer to an interstate. The slower pace and different feel that brought many people from larger areas to Lake Wylie, Hooper said, changed.
“Before it looked and operated very, very different,” he said. “But they are experiencing this Monday through Friday, during both morning and evening peak periods.”
‘It’s unique’
The closest comparison in this area for Lake Wylie, Hooper said, is Tega Cay. Drivers pour off the main roads into a peninsula using one artery. The difference is, drivers heading into Tega Cay aren’t going anywhere else. The lake doesn’t allow through traffic, where Lake Wylie gets drivers from Clover or York heading to Charlotte and back.
“In some ways it’s unique,” Hooper said. “It’s a different environment.”
The corridor study will look at level of service and volume to capacity ratios for roads, wreck history, signalization, dedicated turn lanes. Yet, Hooper said, it’s more than roads. Complaints about traffic often involve more than roads, too.
“What they’re really talking about is the land use,” Hooper said. “Because the roads on their own don’t do that. It’s when you build things around, and people use the roads and you see the results of those land use decisions.”
Residential and business growth in some parts of Lake Wylie have been at 75% or more than past three years, he said, and in another decade the area could see 50% or more growth.
“You’ve got a real transformation,” Hooper said.
Areas east of the Three Points intersection of S.C. 49, S.C. 274 and S.C. 557 largely are built out now. Areas heading toward Clover, or south toward Rock Hill, still could develop in a different way.
“If we don’t want to replicate the experience that we see over here — and granted that developed over decades — but knowing what we know now, having awareness of the congestion levels we do now, we really need to put an emphasis on the land use transportation connection and collector roads,” Hooper said.
In December, York County Council approved a moratorium on certain residential construction through March 2021. The idea is more apartments, townhomes and similar projects wouldn’t be allowed until the county could study and recommend changes on a variety of infrastructure needs. Those needs include roads.
“This means everything to the people of Lake Wylie,” Councilwoman Allison Love said when the moratorium passed Dec. 2.
Because Lake Wylie isn’t incorporated, any land use decisions on how communities develop or what feeder roads may be required fall to state road regulations and county decisions.
“These are substantially county decisions,” Hooper said. “The county is the lead on this.”
Though the corridor study is just starting, Hooper said he’s seen similar issues to what Lake Wylie faces in the crowded Fort Mill, Tega Cay and Indian Land areas. The geography in Lake Wylie and lack of alternate routes for drivers, though, make it critical to consider road needs as more people arrive there.
“The importance of the land use decisions out there are more, not less, important,” Hooper said.
