Plans in works to widen congested Clements Ferry Road - Live5News.com | Charleston, SC | News, Weather, Sports

Plans are in the works to widen a stretch of Clements Ferry Road in Berkeley County.

County officials will widen a four and a half mile stretch of Clements Ferry Road between Jack Primus Road and Highway 41.

Ask just about anyone who drives down Clements Ferry Road what they think about the traffic, you'll get the same answer every time.

"It's getting worse all the time," said Jim Forsell who travels down Clements Ferry Road.

"It's a traffic nightmare, it's frustrating," said Brett Henry who also uses the road.

"It's a bunch of traffic every day, not one day, every day it be like this," said Henry Foy who works on Clements Ferry Road.

Folks say the problem is there are 14,200 cars using Clements Ferry Road each day, and there's only one lane in each direction.

Do the math and you wind up with heavy traffic.

Berkeley County officials say a fix is on the way.

They've begun the process to eventually Clements Ferry from two lanes to four.

"I think it's a great idea. I think it should have been done ahead of this time. It's absolutely necessary with all of the houses that they're building," Forsell said.

The plan is to have two lanes of traffic in each direction, a raised landscaped median along with a path for bicyclists and pedestrians.

That's great news for business people who have to travel down the busy road.

"It needs to be widened. We haul out of Nucor here a lot, and it takes us 20-30 minutes to get back to 526," trucker Danny Wall said.

"I'm self-employed and we run tricks up and down this road all day. We lose a lot of time because of heavy traffic," Henry said.

Preparation work for the widening is underway.

Construction is scheduled to start in 2019. The project is expected to be completed in 2021.

The cost to widen the road is estimated at a little more than $29 million.The one cent sales tax is being used to fund part of the project.

The county is trying to get federal funds to help pay for it.

Copyright 2017 WCSC. All rights reserved.