Project to widen Interstate 26 to get under way in August
07/16/08
Warren Wise - Post and Courier
Get ready for a lot of orange barrels, concrete barriers and lane shifts on your interstate commute for the next three years.
Widening Interstate 26 to eight lanes from the Mark Clark Expressway to Ashley Phosphate Road in North Charleston is about to start.
Workers are expected to come out on the road Aug. 4. Lane closures will not be allowed during the daytime, though the contractor might seek South Carolina Department of Transportation permission for possible closures during weekends to pour concrete when there is less traffic.
Prep work already has begun, and the first piece of the project is in place - a Web site that will give construction updates and let motorists sign up for e-mail traffic alerts.
The widening "will be the most radical transformation of an interstate in the Lowcountry that anyone has ever seen," said Earl Capps of the U.S. Group Inc., which won the construction contract for the million project.
The 2.9-mile project will include
nearly a complete makeover of both the Aviation Avenue and Remount Road interchanges with new on- and off-ramps and collector lanes beneath the bridges.
"It's going to be complicated with two interchanges close by," said SCDOT district construction engineer Tim Henderson.
The improvements are expected to alleviate the rush-hour, stop-and-go traffic that bottlenecks near the Mark Clark Expressway.
"This will improve capacity of the highway and improve safety at the interchanges," Henderson said.
Only a temporary fix
Despite this project, the area's growth is so strong that traffic tie-ups likely will build soon after workers finish. A recent Post and Courier Watchdog analysis found that if traffic grows at the same rate it has during the past 15 years, I-26 will have waves of stop-and-go traffic in just eight years even with the new lanes.
Gail Hale of Moncks Corner commuted by car to the Medical University of South Carolina for 14 years before catching the Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority bus at Kmart on Rivers Avenue in January.
While she is saving money on gasoline and would like to see a commuter rail line, she sees the growth coming to outlying areas of Berkeley County and knows more cars soon will spill onto the freeway.
"I think they still need to do (the widening)," she said. "Charleston is growing so much and if gas ever comes down, then there will be more people on the road. It will help with traffic and accidents."
The number of vehicles on the targeted stretch of highway already exceeds capacity during rush hour.
The traffic count on I-26 between Remount Road and the Mark Clark Expressway is 140,800, based on 2007 SCDOT figures.
A six-lane road's maximum capacity before failure is 117,800 vehicles per day, said Tony Sheppard, a SCDOT traffic engineer. Adding an additional lane will bring I-26's capacity along that stretch to 157,000 vehicles per day, he said.
While orange barrels and concrete barriers will go up along the entire stretch at the onset of construction, initial work will focus on land clearing and demolition and then reworking the Remount Road interchange first, Capps said.
The Remount Road overpass will be replaced with a wider bridge, and the road will be accessible to I-26 in all directions with new exit and entry ramps.
Currently, I-26 has an on-ramp for eastbound traffic from Remount Road and an off-ramp for westbound commuters going to Hanahan or Rivers Avenue. Additional ramps will allow motorists to access I-26 westbound and lead drivers off I-26 eastbound onto Remount Road.
After that, work will shift to the Aviation Avenue cloverleaf, which will lose two of its loops but gain new on- and off-ramps as well as a new, wider bridge.
"The Aviation interchange will be radically redrawn," Capps said.
New merging lanes called collector-distributor lanes will be added to the interchanges of Remount Road and Aviation Avenue, similar to one added a few years ago at the Ashley Phosphate Road interchange leading to Goose Creek and the U.S. Highway 52 connector.
The conflict of motorists entering and exiting the freeway on top of each other under Aviation and Remount bridges will go away.
"That's going to make it a lot safer," Capps said.
While bridges at Remount and Aviation are being torn down at night, traffic will not be allowed on the interstate and motorists will be directed to side streets, such as Rivers Avenue, to bypass the roadwork, Capps said.
The speed limit will be reduced to 45 mph through the work zone when there are lane closures at night, Henderson said.
"Motorists can count on that being enforced," Capps said.
Reach Warren Wise at 745-5850 or wwise@postandcourier.com.
