Photo by Nathan Gray
SCDOT Commissioner Eddie Adams, left, listens as Anderson mayor Terence Roberts speaks at the ground breaking for the East-West Connector on Thursday morning.
Photo by Nathan Gray
Representative Brian White, middle, Anderson mayor Terence Roberts, members of the Anderson County Council and others broke ground for the East-West Connector on Thursday afternoon.
Photo by Nathan Gray
A sign at the East-West Connector groundbreaking states the project was funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Officials moved the first ceremonial shovels of dirt for the East-West Connector today, bringing a road that has been 15 years in the making closer to reality.
The road, which will connect Clemson Boulevard with S.C. 81 North, has been on the agenda for the Anderson Area Transportation Study since the mid-1990s. Preliminary engineering began in 2000. In the state's designs, engineers estimated the road could carry about 17,800 cars a day by 2030.
“This is a project that has been a long time coming,” said South Carolina Secretary of Transportation H.B. Limehouse Jr.
Limehouse, along with about 30 people, attended a groundbreaking for the road Thursday morning.
The project — from the engineering to the purchasing of right-of-ways to the construction — will cost $14.4 million, Limehouse said. Construction will make up about $6.8 million of the total price tag.
State transportation officials approved the road as one of the projects to receive a portion of the $150 million in federal stimulus money South Carolina received for roadwork.
Six companies bid on the project, all from the Carolinas, with prices ranging from $9.4 million to $6.8 million. Thrift Development of Seneca was awarded the contract and is expected to finish work by October 2011.
Marty McKee, vice president of Thrift Development, said workers will start clearing stumps and doing some grading Monday, weather permitting, near the Beltline Boulevard end of the highway.
The connector will be a three-mile, two-lane road complete with turning lanes and a 10-foot-wide path for pedestrians and bicycles. The road will stretch from Oak Hill Drive, at S.C. 81 North, cross over Kings Road and Concord Road and then intersect with Beltline Boulevard at Clemson Boulevard.
Originally the road was designed to be four lanes and the rights of way have already been purchased to make it that wide, said Andrew Leaphart, assistant chief engineer for operations at the state transportation department.
“Ideally, we'd love to build it as a bigger road, but funding it is the issue,” Leaphart said.
Local and state officials at the ceremony all said the road will help open up an area of Anderson County for development and will help with the traffic congestion on Clemson Boulevard.
“At any point in time, the speed of traffic on Clemson Boulevard gets to be a little like a parking lot,” Anderson Mayor Terence Roberts said.
Anderson County Council member Bob Waldrep was at the groundbreaking. He said he can remember, when he was on the council in 1992, riding along the rights of way, looking at where the road was going to go.
The councilman, who represents the central portion of Anderson County, called the project symbolic for the community.
“I hope it will be a connector that puts our hearts and minds together,” Waldrep said.
