With grant in hand, Lexington will add sidewalks to this road. See where
The town of Lexington will add new sidewalks along Old Cherokee Road between Lakeside Middle School and North Lake Drive in an effort to increase pedestrian safety along the busy stretch of road.
The move comes after the town was approved for a $400,000 federal grant, Lexington’s Mayor Hazel Livingston shared on social media Friday. The funds will be used to add five-foot wide sidewalks on both sides of the road, Livingston said.
“Continuing to make our community pedestrian friendly is a goal of our current council and we will continue to work hard to make this a reality,” Livingston said, in her post.
In a comment, Livingston shared the town had committed to adding sidewalk from the middle school to Palmetto Hall Drive on one side of the road and from the middle school all the way down to North Lake Drive on the other.
The two-lane road, which does not currently have sidewalks, saw an average of 11,000 cars each day in 2024, according to daily traffic counts from the state’s transportation department. Lakeside Middle, a Lexington 1 school, had nearly 900 students enrolled at its most recent daily headcount.
The planned sidewalks are a piece of the growing push to make the area’s roads safer for those on foot. Over the last eight years, 400 people have been killed while driving, walking or bicycling in Lexington County, according to county data. South Carolina is one of the highest ranked states for rate of pedestrian deaths in the country.
The project is tentatively set to begin construction in the summer of 2026, but that’s dependent on both the state and federal agencies involved in the planning process, Town Councilman Todd Carnes told The State.
