GETTING ANSWERS: Earls Bridge Road (Highway 186)

PICKENS COUNTY, SC (FOX Carolina) - Getting Answers is finding out what’s going on with Highway 186, better known as Earls Bridge Road.

The complaints have come in reference to the drive from Highway 135 to Highway 8.

Next to the road is the gorgeous Glassy Mountain, but the potholes have been giving drivers a mountain of problems.

Tracie Zucchi works at a gas station off of Earls Bridge Road.

“There’s a lot of potholes everywhere,” Zucchi says.

During the drive, you’ll see dips, patches, cracks, and craters littered everywhere.

David Wayne Porter lives on the roadway.

“I’ve seen small trees growing up in the cracks of the road,” Porter said.

Porter says it makes for a bumpy ride.

“It will shatter your teeth when you’re driving down it. I mean, it’s pretty rickety.”

Drivers have reached their peak.

“It’s pretty bumpy. It’s pretty messed up when you try to drive,” Zucchi said.

Porter says he doesn’t know if the road can be saved.

“It has just went too far, because we’ve got a lot of places that have got severely bad dips in it,” said Porter.

And Zucchi says they’re not making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to the potholes.

“We go through a lot of tires... a lot,” said Zucchi.

The worst batch of potholes are as you turn right at the Sunoco gas station headed toward Highway 8.

“I just feel like we need some attention. I mean, just fixing potholes is not the answer,” said Porter.

The state’s Department of Transportation says Earls Bridge Road from Dacusville Highway to just before Griffin Road is included in the 2022 Pavement Improvement Program.

“It’s going to have be reconstructed, the way I look at it,” Porter said.

However, this is only a portion of the road. The SCDOT says the section from Highway 8 to Highway 135 is a candidate for the 2023 program; which disappoints Porter.

“I’m the type of follow—when you start something, finish it. And the Greenville County side of this road has already been completely reconstructed and paved. And I just don’t understand why it’s taking so long to finish this road,” Porter said.

We drove the Greenville County side, and it is smoother.

Zucchi is looking forward to the pave.

“They need to really just repair the whole thing. So, that way it’s just not going to constantly be a problem,” said Zucchi.

Submit a roadway here.

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