See how the first rush hour looked during I-77 bridge work in Rock Hill, Fort Mill
Traffic continued to flow Friday morning, though slower, as Rock Hill and Fort Mill endured the first rush hour during I-77 bridge construction.
On Thursday the South Carolina Department of Transportation announced it set up a new traffic camera aimed at the bridge over the Catawba River. It joins dozens of others on the interstate that drivers can use to see real time traffic conditions.
Heavy backups are expected the next couple of weeks as crews replace the southbound lanes bridge deck due to deterioration. The southbound lane closure runs through May 24.
The closure officially began at 9 p.m. Thursday. Yet through the night traffic still flowed on both sides of the bridge, as crews reset concrete barriers to shift traffic fully onto what are typically the northbound lanes of the bridge. A little after 7 a.m. Friday the barriers were set and southbound flow began periodic stoppages. Traffic still using the southbound bridge lanes funneled into one lane before widening again heading into Rock Hill.
At 8:30 a.m., traffic remained free flowing in most places but had stalled around Exit 83. Southbound traffic headed toward the Sutton Road interchange crept, and at times hit standstills.
Drivers appear to have heeded the mounted messages ahead of construction, and sought ways around construction. At 7 a.m. a crane lifted and reset concrete barriers on the interstate as traffic flowed slower than usual, but freely. On the parallel U.S. 21 route from Cherry Road in Rock Hill to Sutton Road in Fort Mill, a traffic camera showed northbound traffic at a standstill in the left lane on that bridge. Those conditions hadn’t changed much an hour later.
Not all of that U.S. 21 traffic is detour by choice.
SCDOT closed on ramps heading toward the I-77 bridge in both directions. So anyone who typically gets on the interstate headed north at Cherry or Celanese roads in Rock Hill would have to take U.S. 21 to access the interstate farther north, or a less direct route.
The 511 traffic information system showed numerous area routes experiencing high traffic as of 9:20 a.m. They included Fort Mill Parkway, Pole Branch Road in Lake Wylie and Carowinds Boulevard. Other roads like U.S. 521 and Barberville Road in Indian Land, and S.C. 49 in Lake Wylie, didn’t show delays.
Then, peak traffic hit.
When the bridge lanes closed around 9:30 a.m., and before southbound traffic routed onto the northbound bridge lanes, cars sat stalled in the Sutton Road area and heavy backups lasted several miles. Before 10 a.m. though, traffic was again flowing both directions on the bridge and southbound congestion began to ease.
As of 10 a.m., southbound bridge traffic hadn’t yet shifted to the typically northbound lanes where it will be for most of the construction period.
Most traffic headed north on Friday morning, as is typically the case with so many York County drivers commuting to Charlotte. The afternoon rush is expected to flow back south.
Friday is the first of 11 weekdays included in the construction project.
This story was originally published May 7, 2021 at 10:44 AM.
