By Jason Evans

Staff Reporter

jevans@thepccourier.com

COUNTY — Portions of U.S. Highway 123 and Issaqueena Trail are among the road projects that the South Carolina Department of Transportation recommends be addressed by a statewide program.

Last week, SCDOT released a county-by-county listing of projects recommended for the 2020-21 Pavement Improvement Program.

The program contains more than 660 miles of paving projects, according to Secretary of Transportation Christy Hall.

In the introduction to the program list, Hall said the recommended projects “were selected utilizing ranking that are based on objective and quantifiable factors.”

The recommended projects comply with the department’s 10-year plan, she said.

Prior to the implementation of the state’s Roads Bill, which went into effect July 1, 2017, SCDOT assessed that 80 percent of the state’s 42,000 highway miles need resurfacing or rebuilding. The department’s 10-year goal is to bring half of those roads up to a “good” rating.

The recommended projects support the performance targets established in the Transportation Asset Management Plan and utilize a county-by-county distribution of paving funds “in order to ensure that every county of the state is guaranteed paving funds,” Hall said.

“The additional 660 miles of paving projects contained in the 2020-2021 Pavement Improvement Program will be added to the previously previously approved 3,348-plus miles of paving projects advanced since the implementation of Act 40 of 2017 and incorporated into the ‘New Gas Tax Trust Fund’ transparency and accountability reports,” she said.

Rehabilitation treatment on two sections of U.S. 123/Calhoun Memorial Highway is recommended in the program.

The first is a 0.96-mile section of the highway from mile point 13.60 to mile point 14.56.

The second is a 2.11-mile section from mile point 22.48 to mile point 24.59.

More than three miles of Issaqueena Trail in Central, from mile point 0.00 to mile point 3.20, are recommended for reconstruction.

Two other neighborhood streets in the county are recommended for reconstruction treatment.

The first is a 1.53-mile section of Wolf Creek School Road in Pickens from mile point 0.00 to mile point 1.53.

The second is a 0.89-mile section of Mt. Tabor Church Road in the Dacusville area from mile point 3.43 to mile point 4.32.