Date Published: July 7, 2006   

Dillon County officials want I-73 interchange

The Associated Press

Some leaders in Dillon County say they want state transportation officials to move the preferred route for the southern leg of Interstate 73 closer to the city of Dillon.

The vice chairman of Dillon County's Development Board says one of his panel's biggest complains is that the route chosen by the transportation officials doesn't have an interchange where I-73 would cross U.S. 301, the major north-south roadway in Dillon County.

"The county would be better off without I-73 at all, rather than the way they've got it now," Daniel Shine said.

The South Carolina Department of Transportation's existing preferred plan won't foster economic development, something the department has said it hopes to do with I-73, said Shine, who added that his board voted unanimously to support another route which would have taken the interstate closer to Dillon.

The interstate, which will eventually link the state with Michigan, will run 90 miles across South Carolina, giving the 14 million tourists who visit the Myrtle Beach area each year their first direct interstate link to the Grand Strand.

Transportation officials are reviewing notes from a series of public meetings held to get input on the current preferred route, which runs from Interstate 95 west of Latta and south through Marion County on its way to the Conway Bypass.

Residents of the Temperance Hill community in Marion County have also criticized the interstate route, which would split the community in half.

Dillon County's economic development director echoed Shine's sentiments.

"Right now Dillon County is doing all the giving and not getting anything in return," said Gene Butler. "We're simply a conduit to the beach."

Butler said he and local business leaders met with transportation officials last week but did not make much progress on a compromise plan.

He knows changing the preferred route could hold up construction of I-73, but Butler said the wait would be worth the benefit to Dillon County.

"It'll definitely hold up the project, but what are you going to do?" he asked. "Delay the project, or let it go through the way it is, when it won't bring any economic benefit to us?"

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Information from: Morning News,