Officials want to fix these congested Lake Murray roads. They say they’ll need more money
Neon pink, blue and yellow sticky notes line the map with suggestions on what the busy road needs.
“Impossible to get out of shopping center,” one yellow note reads. “COMET bus route needed,” a blue one reads.
These suggestions and many others were received at one of two recent public input sessions held Feb. 20 by the Central Midlands Council of Governments considering possible improvements along eight miles of heavily-trafficked thoroughfares that run along the Irmo side of Lake Murray.
Proposed changes to the roads — North Lake Drive/S.C. 6 from Dreher Shoals Road to Lake Murray Blvd./S.C. 60 and Lake Murray Blvd. to St. Andrews Road — are still in the earliest stages. The Central Midlands Council, which aids in planning and inter-county communications for four counties in the area, is in the midst of a project to gatherinformation to determine how to improve the roads.
But there’s one significant snag.
The bulk of the targeted thoroughfares are in Lexington County, and unless the county can successfully pass a penny tax, a 1% sales tax aimed at helping pay for road improvements and upkeep, officials say the money to actually make the improvements clamored for on those colorful sticky notes could be hard to find. Such a tax was voted down by residents in 2022 and 2014.
“Regardless of what the study tells us, it’s worthless if we can’t put it into action,” said Todd Cullum, who chairs Lexington County Council. “How are we going to fund it? Because the funding mechanisms that we have now, I’m not telling you they’re not working. They’ve just got a very, very long time frame.”
’Built for a time that no longer exists’
A daily average of around 18,000 cars traverse the roads that run along Lake Murray and into downtown Irmo, according to 2024 data from the Central Midlands Council. Lake Murray Boulevard near Saint Andrews Road saw more than 22,000 vehicles a day.
Many drivers use S.C. 6 and S.C. 60, which intersect near the Lake Murray Dam, to travel between Columbia, Irmo, Chapin, Lexington and Ballentine, in an attempt to avoid Interstate 26 and its interchanges with Interstates 20 and 126 (known as “Malfunction Junction”), Irmo Mayor Pro-Tem Erik Sickinger said.
“It’s a traffic increase across all those roads, and a problem of congestion during the heavily trafficked, rush hours,” Sickinger told The State.
What could be done to improve traffic in the area is unclear. The Central Midlands Council expects to wrap its project soliciting input this summer.
Some public officials floated adding more turn lanes or roundabouts, improving intersections or widening the roads. And while expanding S.C. 6 from two lanes to three was popular with attendees at the Feb. 20 public input meeting, with at least 60 people voicing support for such a change, it might not be the catch-all solution.
“What is going to sustain us for the next 20 or 30 years? You can’t widen yourselves out of congestion, so how can we keep the traffic flowing?” Lexington County Councilwoman Charlene Wessinger said, adding that public input is a large piece of coming up with a wise plan for the area.
Widening parts of the road might be feasible, some officials said, but parts of the road are restricted by a lack of available land and cost.
“We’re never going to eliminate traffic. What we have to try to do is to keep the traffic moving,” Irmo Mayor Bill Danielson told The State.
When Danielson moved to the Columbia suburb in the 1980s, there wasn’t much of anything in Irmo. But amid expansive growth in Irmo and the surrounding areas, many of the area’s dated roads aren’t keeping up with increasing traffic demands, Danielson said.
“It’s clear that the road design and engineering was built for a time that no longer exists,” Sickinger echoed.
Henry Martin, who lives in the Irmo area and is a part of a group of concerned citizens known as Develop Lexington County Responsibly, said the problems with the roads should’ve been remedied 20 years ago.
Aside from changes aimed at improving the flow of cars through the area, officials are hoping to get answers from the public on what beautification and pedestrian safety measures they’d like to see – things like adding bike lanes, walking paths and crosswalks. The changes could also include added public transit options, like a COMET bus stop.
But the possibility of a bus route in an area that’s long been rural isn’t as welcome for some as others. At the public input meeting, many expressed opposition.
“We bought property in a rural area with no buses and no bike trails for a reason. If someone wants buses and bike trails, they should choose to live in an area that provides that – not where it isn’t,” a comment inked in red read.
Martin echoed this sentiment.
“The purpose of this is supposed to be alleviating traffic? Buses will not do that,” he said.
People in the area don’t want a COMET bus line to run through Irmo, Danielson told The State.
“They don’t understand the need for it and all they see is what they hear, right? That [the buses] just shuffle homeless people up here,” Danielson said.
Only one accident involving a pedestrian happened along S.C. 6 and S.C. 60 in the Irmo area between 2021 and 2024, in a time period that saw more than 500 crashes, according to data provided by the Central Midlands Council. But some leaders said they still see a need for pedestrian improvements in the area.
“People complain that the sidewalks just dead end, where suddenly you have to cross the road to make the sidewalk or there’s just no more sidewalks and now you’re walking on the easement,” Sickinger said.
The best use of funds
The Central Midlands Council will take the survey data and work with consultants and local officials to come up with the best game plan for what changes need to be made, while considering how much money exists to make the changes.
The government group focuses on roadway projects that aren’t a priority for the state’s Department of Transportation. While SCDOT focuses most of its dollars on massive interstate improvements, the council offers municipalities support in funding projects for in-town thoroughfares and smaller roads.
But the council only has so much money. And the idea is that local governments would offer up some portion of the funding for projects like the improvements to S.C. 6/S.C. 60 to offset the costs for the council so that it can fund more projects across the Midlands.
“If we can spend $2 million because you’ve got $8 million into a $10 million project, from my perspective, we just got a $10 million project for $2 million,” said Britt Poole, executive director of the Central Midlands Council. “That’s a really good use of those funds. So we can combine multiple funding sources to be able to get our needs met.”
The need for more funding for roadway projects has been on the minds of Lexington County officials for more than a decade.
Lexington County voters rejected a proposed penny sales tax that would’ve raised more than $500 million to pave and widen roads across the county in November 2022. Voters previously shot down the plan in 2014. Local leaders have advocated for the tax as a way to fix the county’s ailing roads.
By 2030, around 70% of roads in the county could be classified as “fair” or “poor,” according to a 2023 analysis by Infrastructure Consulting and Engineering. County council members abandoned a plan to charge a $30 road maintenance fee that would’ve been tagged on to annual vehicle taxes in November of last year.
“Lexington County clearly has to get a penny tax passed,” Irmo Mayor Danielson said. “It is growing and needs improvements.”
The county council plans to put another penny tax proposal back on the ballot for voters in 2026. When it failed in 2022, it was voted down by more than 8,000 votes with 55% voting against it.
This story was originally published March 4, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
