Solutions to growth, traffic, flooding discussed during first Highway 90 task force meeting

CONWAY, S.C. (WMBF) - Horry County’s Highway 90, 905, and Conway Perimeter Road Task Force met for the first time on Friday.

The group is made up of members of Horry County Council as well as other community leaders, and state representatives. Their focus is to discuss ways they can move forward with fixing the issues plaguing growing areas around the county.

The task force is looking at short-term solutions like adding traffic lights and better road markings, to eventually the possibility of widening the road. Task force member April O’Leary, who represents the views of people who have dealt with repeated flooding, said Friday’s meeting was a big first step.

“We want to make sure we really study what the issues are, understand, analyze, understand what the traffic concerns are,” she said.

Once they figure out some solutions, they have to find a way to pay for them. State Representative Tim McGinnis said they’re preparing to ask the state for $100 million to go towards Highway 90.

“$100 million is a lot of money, the total cost of widening Highway 90 in its entirety is $500 million,” he said. “So not to say this is a drop in the bucket, but it’s only just getting a little bit of what we need to get that entire project complete.”

He’s also trying to save money by having Highway 90 looked at in the same study as one for Highway 17.

“We’re trying to piggy back Highway 90 onto that. A big part of the cost when you talk about improving roads, isn’t just the actual paving, it’s the engineering, it’s the planning, it’s buying property along the way for when you can pave it, so if we can knock this part of it out, by piggy backing it onto another study, that’s money we won’t have to spend down the road,” said McGinnis. “Hopefully in about a year if we’re apart of that study, we will have identified the critical parts of highway 90 that need to be improved.”

The next meeting is on Dec. 8 at 10 a.m.

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