After over two decades of planning, construction will finally begin in the following weeks to extend Railroad Avenue and finally connect the two halves of the city of Hanahan, South Carolina. The US$20 million project will extend Railroad Avenue about a mile from Mabeline Road to Eagle Landing Boulevard. The event will take place between Hanahan Elementary School and the Recreation Center’s ball fields. The project, which has been in the works since the 1990s, has faced a series of delays that have confounded local officials.
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The Carolina Railroad avenue extension will include a two-lane roadway constructed along the eastern side of the existing CSX rail line with a sidewalk along one side of the road. The project will be funded with about US$4 million from a federal earmark and US$16 million from the Berkeley County 1-cent sales tax program. Construction is expected to take about 18 months, with the extension scheduled to be completed by November 2022. The project is expected to provide a safer connection between North and South Hanahan. Residents who live in the Eagle Landing and Otranto areas will no longer have to enter Rivers Avenue and cross the railroad twice to get to the other side of the city.
Motorists in the two subdivisions are routinely trapped between the Goose Creek Reservoir and the CSX railroad tracks with no exits out of the neighborhoods when trains stop along the route that runs parallel to Rivers Avenue. There are just two exits out of Eagle Landing and Otranto; one on Eagle Landing Boulevard and the other on Otranto Boulevard. The 1-mile extension of Railroad Avenue will connect Eagle Landing and Otranto residents with the rest of Hanahan without forcing them to travel on the heavily congested Rivers Avenue. The extension will also provide quick access to the Eagle Landing and Otranto areas for emergency vehicles.
