In the latest example of their Rural Road Safety Project (RRSP), the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) announced coming updates to 10 miles of Aiken County’s US Route 1 North.
Thus far, the RRSP has recently yielded two other construction projects in Lexington County, with improvements made to US 178 and SC 302. Those improvements have covered approximately 35 miles of road thus far.
SCDOT’s ambitious rebuilding program calls for customized safety improvements on 100 miles per year for the next decade. In the first year, they have already tackled 187 miles with improvements such as widening of roads, paving shoulders, brightening pavement markings, adding rumble strips, creating guardrails and making sign post panels more reflective.
In this way, Christy Hall, SCDOT’s secretary of transportation, hopes to turn around what she contends is the nation’s highest rate of highway fatalities — figures which currently see 30 percent of fatal and serious injury crashes transpiring on just a 5 percent stretch of rural roads.
“This life and death issue is why SCDOT has committed $50 million in annual funding in the 10-Year Plan to address high-crash rural corridors,” Hall said.