The many ways Malfunction Junction lives up to its name

For drivers who live near Columbia’s “Malfunction Junction,” the much hated stretch of interstate is like a cranky neighbor you try to avoid.

For those forced to use the six- to eight-lane highway, it’s a daily headache. “I can’t afford a helicopter,” said frustrated family practice physician Kadijah Jones, who commutes downtown to the medical clinic her low-income patients rely upon.

It’s about to get worse. The holiday season is the worst time of year for collisions, according to figures from the state Highway Patrol.

For Irmo Fire Chief Mike Sonefeld, the roadway where I-26 and I-20 intersect poses dangers for his firefighters and practical problems for getting access to a crash scene and deciding which of a handful of agencies should respond.

Here’s a look at the challenges of Malfunction Junction from different perspectives.

The commuter

When Jones lived in Philadelphia, she at least had the choice of riding a subway to downtown.

“You don’t have a choice down here,” Jones said of commuting from her home in the Ballentine area. She describes her weekday grind through the mounting traffic “crazy,” “ridiculous” and “a nightmare.”

To be sure she can keep early appointments with her patients, Jones leaves before 7:15 a.m. and can generally be on time.

“If I leave my house after 7:15 a.m., it takes me 50 minutes to get to work, and that’s on a day that it’s not raining and there’s no accident,” Jones said. “You factor in an accident and you have three lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic inching, inching, inching along.

“Going home, it’s just as bad.”

Kathy Roberson considers herself lucky. She has been able to change her work schedule so she arrives after the crush of rush hour. “But not everybody can do that,” she said.

During the eight years that Roberson had to navigate rush hours, she knew other drivers could mess up her morning.

“If there’s a bad wreck on I-26 at Malfunction Junction, it could put you back an hour (and) there’s no way to get around ... without going way out of your way,” said Roberson, who works at the same clinic as Jones.

Dealing with rush hour traffic also affected her homelife. Living in Chapin, Roberson couldn’t leave home too early. She had to protect her chickens.

“You can’t let the chickens out in the dark or they’ll get eaten,” Roberson said.

The neighbors

Art Guerry and Lloyd Higbe have each lived more than four decades in the Whitehall and Gardendale neighborhoods that overlook the intersection. At that time, the intersection of two interstate highways was an attraction to homebuyers.

“You could drive to the beach or drive to the mountains,” said Guerry, who has lived in Whitehall since 1971.

As traffic exploded over the years, the asset turned to a drawback.

“The locals know the danger of it,” Guerry said. “It’s like a bad neighbor – you just try to ignore it and live with it.”

Nearby residents know to stay away from that route during morning and afternoon rush hours or other peak times like the holidays and Fridays during the summer when I-26 and I-20 are thoroughfares carrying travelers to South Carolina’s beaches.

“Generally, wrecks are from out-of-state drivers who aren’t familiar with it,” Guerry said of the tight proximity of exits that carry drivers from one interstate to the other.

“I try to work my daily comings and goings during the hours that are not rush hour,” said Higbe, who moved into Gardendale 48 years ago. “In the last five years, it’s gotten to be a mess.”

Alternate routes aren’t much help because of traffic lights and spillover vehicles that also are avoiding Malfunction Junction.

The short, eight-lane stretch that extends from the St. Andrews Road overpass to the Bush River Road overpass carried some 141,400 vehicles on typical days in 2016, according to figures from the S.C. Transportation Department. The volume rose steadily in the past five years from 128,800 daily in 2012.

The numbers

Here’s a look at other Malfunction Junction statistics for January 2012 through December 2016 from the state Department of Public Safety, which includes the Highway Patrol. Some of the data might surprise you:

▪  There were 1,933 collisions on the one-mile stretch between the two overpasses. Of that number, about 35 percent happened during rush hours.

▪  The worst time of year to travel that route is, well, now.

Most crashes don’t happen in summer, when tourists are beach bound, or at the start of the school year. October, November and December have the largest number of collisions, with November being the worst, with 215 wrecks.

Perhaps the November figures are a result of drivers headed home for Thanksgiving dinners, officials speculate. The December numbers are likely a function of holiday shoppers heading to the Columbiana Centre regional shopping mall and those going home for Christmas. December had 194 collisions.

▪  Despite those numbers, the chance of getting into a wreck is infinitesimal – a decimal point followed by a bunch of zeros.

▪  But if you are in a wreck, there’s a 9.35 percent chance you will be hurt. Four people died in five years.

▪  Property damage during the five-year period totals $8.5 million, by the Highway Patrol’s estimates. That translates to an average of $4,376 per wreck.

▪  Afternoon rush hour is more dangerous than morning rush hour. There are almost twice as many wrecks in the afternoon. Drivers, officials guess, are more irritated by the day’s events, are more tired after a day of work and are more eager to get home.

▪  About 78 percent of collisions happen in clear weather.

The first responders

Sonefeld, fire chief over the Irmo fire district that abuts Malfunction Junction, said his firefighters were called to the stretch of highway 360 times in 2016. The pace is the same so far this year.

“At least once a day, we’re down there,” Sonefeld said. “But yesterday we had six calls.

“And that’s just us,” Sonefeld said.

Other first responders that cover Malfunction Junction include the ambulance services in Richland and and Lexington counties; firefighters from Columbia, West Columbia and Irmo; law enforcement officers from the Highway Patrol, Lexington and Richland sheriff’s departments and Columbia police; and towing companies that remove mangled vehicles.

For Lt. Chris Shelton, a 25-year veteran of the Highway Patrol who grew up in Irmo, Malfunction Junction has always been a law enforcement challenge.

Extra troopers have been assigned to the area as traffic has grown worse. There was a time in the early 2000s when the patrol had troopers on motorcycles so they could weave their way through traffic to get to collisions.

“In the last 10 years, the calls for service ... have increased drastically,” Shelton said. Part of the reason is more drivers distracted by mobile phones.

Impatient drivers create another challenge when they use emergency lanes that are intended for first responders.

“The emergency lane is not meant to travel to the next exit that’s convenient for you,” Shelton said. “We’re trying to get to this call and we see the lane blocked, and the traffic is stopped. How do we get there?”

He holds out hope for the proposed $1.5 billion widening and redesign of Malfunction Junction and adjoining roads that is tentatively scheduled to be finished about 2026.

“I think it’s a plan that would eliminate the stoppages,” Shelton said.

This story was originally published November 17, 2017 at 11:29 AM with the headline "The many ways Malfunction Junction lives up to its name."