A road that doesn't need to be widened

Federal and state highway officials are planning to widen Steed Creek Road (pictured at right)  through the Francis Marion National Forest in Charleston.

Conservationists say the Steed Creek plan is a boondoggle that would transform a lightly traveled forest road into a major thoroughfare through one of the most environmentally sensitive areas on the East Coast.

Steed Creek Road is a narrow, two-lane road off U.S. Highway 17 that has 300 cars a day on it. It stretches between Awendaw and Huger. Along the way, it passes through rare longleaf forests, home to endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers and plant species in danger of extinction.

The U.S. Forest Service and Federal Highway Administration want to widen the road's lanes from 10 feet to 12 feet and add paved two-foot shoulders on each side. Original plans called for even wider graded shoulders, giving the road a new profile of about 48 feet wide. When conservationists opposed that, the FHA reduced the size of the project slightly.

If completed, the upgraded Steed Creek Road would have the same wide lanes and graded shoulders as the state's busiest high-speed highways. It also would be significantly wider than other more-heavily traveled roads in and around the forest.

The current, 12-foot-lane plans call for a total paved width of 28 feet, which FHA says will make the road safer for buses, logging trucks and other vehicles, even though very few even use it. The project is expected to cost $10 million or more. 

Conservationists still wonder why engineers are building such a robust road through a rural area. John Brubaker, president of the S.C. Native Plant Society, said the road should be repaired and repaved but not upgraded with 12-foot lanes. His group and the Coastal Conservation League, with the Southern Environmental Law Center, are considering a lawsuit.

"Our concern is that this is a step toward turning Steed Creek Road and other roads in the national forest into major traffic routes," says Brubaker. "Rather than facilitating heavier vehicles, we should be looking at ways to relieve the traffic burden that is there."