More than one hundred people signed up as they walked in to a public meeting at Socastee High School for the proposed SC 707 widening from south of Enterprise Road in Horry County to US 17 in Georgetown County.
Charles Harvey was one of those people. Harvey lives in the area where the project is being proposed and said, "Well I’d like to see it get widened, it'd sure help the upper end whenever they finish widening the upper end of 707, traffic is a little hectic sometimes.”
One group with special concerns is more than one hundred people living near a section of 707 where noise barriers are planned. Leah Quattlebaum, SCDOT assistant program manager said since this is one of the longer projects that’s part of the Riding on a Penny project and impacts a number of residential properties, getting feedback on thoughts and opinions is important. “Well there's some instances where we can go back, like for instance, the noise walls, we're expecting to get feedback from people tonight, f the majority of the people in that area do not want the noise walls, we will not implement them." Quattlebaum said.
John Coulson would be looking at the barriers walls from the back of his property. Coulson said he'll lose some of his front yard and some pine trees as well, once construction is underway. "We're not happy about it, but it's on us because we knew about it, so we were going to build a berm and we did not and we were waiting until this came through to see what would happen, so they're building the wall, we'll take the wall, so, I don't know about my wife, I’m too old to move."
Norm Houck said he's most concerned about noise and privacy, so much so that he built a five foot dirt mound in the back of his property; he'll lose the mound if the noise barriers go up. "It’s really a good idea, if it's aesthetically feasible from both sides, not just from the road side, but from our back yard."
Quattlebaum said once the final plans are approved, construction is expected to start in fall of 2010 and take three to four years.
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