Pilings are in the ground to support coming flyover bridges. Walls are up and traffic is shifted at Exit 85 in Fort Mill, where Interstate 77 meets S.C. 160. Work crews are a constant presence.
So it may surprise drivers that one of the region’s biggest road jobs in decades still won’t be done until nearly 2028.
The recent construction pace begged the question for area elected officials who met Feb. 28 in Rock Hill for an update on roads. With the new interchange project going up so fast, why won’t it be done sooner?
There’s a down-to-earth answer that has more to do with internet speeds and flushing toilets than flyover ramps. It’s all about utilities.
“The bridge work and the interchange is very fast,” said South Carolina Department of Transportation district administrator Jason Johnston, “primarily because there’s no utilities in the way.”
Johnston oversees roads jobs for seven counties, including York. He outlined the coming steps at Exit 85 last month for those officials and other road experts who sit on the Rock Hill-Fort Mill Area Transportation Study policy committee. They watched a time lapse video of construction thus far.
Tuesday marked one year since groundbreaking for the $160 million project between Baxter and Kingsley. Officials from across York County commended the state transportation department on the visible progress to date.
“If they keep going at the pace of the video, we’ll have this done by the end of the year,” joked York County Councilman Tom Audette, who represents Tega Cay and parts of Fort Mill west of the interstate.
Even at actual speed, the landscape at Exit 85 changes almost daily.
“They’ve moved a lot quicker than I anticipated,” said Fort Mill Mayor Guynn Savage. “(There have been) very few times that I have been through there that they weren’t working with full staff and full steam ahead.”
Still, one pending part of the job awaits.
State law allows public utilities to be placed into public right-of-way areas. So the often-narrow spaces between, beside and beneath roads can include plenty of utilities. They’re often stacked on top of one another to save room.
“It’s not practical to buy parking lots and hotels (for road right-of-way), so you’re working within the narrow footprint you have,” Johnston said.
S.C. 160 will be widened two six lanes as part of the project, from Sutton Road to U.S. 21. That’s a busy corridor not only for traffic, but for public services. Where decades ago road crews might have a Fort Mill Telephone Company line to relocate, Johnston said, now there can be eight or nine communications companies. There’s always water, sewer and gas to consider, too.
“The slower part will be the actual widening from The Peach Stand to Pleasant Road,” Johnston said. “And that’s because each and every place you dig, there’s a utility.”
Among all the utilities, there’s a certain order they have to follow. Which can take time to coordinate as drivers await a finished road. There’s also the danger of construction crews working near utility lines.
Late last month, construction crews nicked a gas line causing emergency repairs and a traffic shift into a single lane. Police, fire, construction and utility crews handled the issue as well as could be expected, Savage said, and the repair was made quickly. But the incident highlighted the challenges with so much construction in the area.
“As we’re looking at area that are laden with utility easements,” Savage said, “this could happen anywhere at any time.”
Switching traffic lanes is the hardest part of bridge work at the interchange, and it’s been done so crews can build center supports for two flyover bridges and a median where a barrier used to be, Johnston said. None of that work involved utilities.
As large as it is, the Exit 85 job isn’t the first major construction project in the area. The transportation department planned for utility work, and they’re confident the work will be completed on time.
Ongoing ramp, retaining wall and smaller road improvements will continue through this time next year, according to transportation department estimates. New ramp construction, a traffic shift on S.C. 160, widening and S.C. 160 bridge construction should run through spring 2027. The timeline shows other work running through the end of that year.
“The only delays would be if one utility has to stack on top of another,” Johnston said. “If one has to bury and then another can bury.”
Crews factored in the significant utility work, and that process started alongside the bridge and ramp work at the interstate. So even if it may seem in coming months that work has slowed, Johnston said, it’s all part of a carefully planned process to coordinate interstate, interchange and road widening efforts.
“At the beginning of the project,” he said, “everybody said go at the same time.”
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John Marks graduated from Furman University in 2004 and joined the Herald in 2005. He covers community growth, municipalities, transportation and education mainly in York County and Lancaster County. The Fort Mill native earned dozens of South Carolina Press Association awards and multiple McClatchy President’s Awards for news coverage in Fort Mill and Lake Wylie.