Roads
Proposed fix to long-time problem draws questions
There have been two traffic accidents on Highway 17 in Litchfield since a group of residents and officials met three weeks ago to review plans for reconfiguring intersections in the area. One was Monday morning, said Brent McClellan, chief of Midway Fire Rescue.
“Residents of Litchfield Country Club obviously want safer, easier access to 17,” said Jerry Oakley, president of the neighborhood’s property owners association. “The proposal will substantially improve both those things.”
The state Department of Transportation will present the plans and take comments from the public at a forum next week. A design presented last month calls for eliminating median breaks and restricting left turns onto the highway from the YMCA north to Crooked Oak Drive.
At the YMCA and Crooked Oak, traffic signals would be installed to allow U-turns. People on the east side of the highway, including those in Litchfield Beach, would have to go north to Crooked Oak to turn south.
Those on the west side of the highway could leave Litchfield Country Club at Crooked Oak and turn north or go south to the YMCA to make a U-turn.
Left turns will no longer be allowed at Country Club Drive, the main entrance to Litchfield Country Club.
The initial proposal removed left turns into Litchfield Beach from the highway. That was changed after Midway Fire Rescue objected.
“I couldn’t see bypassing South Litchfield to go back in there,” McClellan said.
The plan now allows southbound traffic to turn left onto Litchfield Drive.
“I’m a lot more comfortable with it,” McClellan said.
But property owners at Litchfield Beach raised objections to losing the left turn onto the highway. “We don’t think this solves the problem,” said Kevin Corrigan, president of the Litchfield Beaches Property Owners Association.
He was among the people who met with DOT officials and their engineering consultants from the firm Mead & Hunt.
“The LBPOA remains resolute and opposed to the current design,” Corrigan said. “It’s not safe, it’s not good.”
The area was the top priority in a study of the Highway 17 corridor on Waccamaw Neck conducted by the Grand Strand Area Transportation Study, an intergovernmental group that allocates federal highway funds to regional projects. The engineering firm that did the study, AECOM, found that Litchfield Drive and Country Club Drive had the second highest number of accidents of any section of Highway 17. They proposed the series of “reduced conflict intersections” as a way to improve safety by eliminating right-angle collisions.
“Traffic planners do not like left turns,” Oakley said.
He was on Georgetown County Council when a 2003 corridor study identified the Litchfield area as a problem and was the POA president when the 2021 update proposed the framework of the current proposal.
In between, there were plans offered to realign Litchfield Drive and Country Club Drive. None were able to obtain the needed right-of-way.
After County Council adopted the updated corridor study in 2021, the Litchfield project was added to the GSATS funding list in 2023.
DOT hired Mead & Hunt to design the project last year.
The improvements include adding sidewalks on both sides of the highway. There will be crosswalks at Crooked Oak and Litchfield Drive.
“I do see a need for pedestrian safety right there,” McClellan said of Litchfield Drive. Two fatalities included in an accident summary were both pedestrians, he said.
Linda Ketron, who has been working on the Bike the Neck path along Waccamaw Neck since 1994, was also at the meeting with DOT last month. The bike path was initially planned to run along the highway from Murrells Inlet to Georgetown. The section in Litchfield diverted west to Kings River Road because of problems obtaining easements.
She sees an opportunity in the improvement plan to improve bike access, but isn’t hopeful.
“They did not say a word about the sidewalks until I asked the question,” Ketron said of DOT and its consultants. “Sidewalks or multi-purpose path? There are a lot of bicycles that need to get out of South Litchfield and to the Y.”
“They said it’s just a sidewalk,” she added. “Who needs a sidewalk?”
But the planners promised to expand the crosswalk at Litchfield Drive so that golf carts that currently cross the four-way intersection at the traffic light will still have access.
“There were assurances that would be taken into consideration,” Oakley said.
Staff from DOT and Mead & Hunt will be at Waccamaw Intermediate School from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday to discuss the project and take comments. DOT will continue to take comments online until May 29 at projectportal.scdot.org.
