GETTING ANSWERS: East/West Belvue Road

GREENVILLE, S.C. (FOX Carolina) - We brought FOX Carolina’s “Getting Answers” to East and West Belvue Roads, in Greenville County.

The road is just over a mile long between Buckhorn Road and Rutherford Road, in the Taylors area.

East Belvue Road seemed to have most of the complaints. The part in front of The Unity Church of Greenville, leading to Paris Elementary school stands out.

Thomas McCarty is the chief of the Piedmont Park Fire Department, which is not far from Belvue Road.

“It’s so bad that it shakes and vibrates the equipment. And it causes reduced response times, because we’ve got to slow down and also alignment and wear-and-tear issues,” McCarty said.

Drivers, like Gary Day, fear the road isn’t going to hold together much longer.

“I feel like parts are just going to come flying off of it. It’s just really terrible,” Day continues, “It’s a bad road. It really is.”

McCarty says it’s even more of an obstacle for engineers and firefighters.

“A lot of smaller vehicles, sometimes, can maneuver around the bad spots, the potholes, and stuff like that,” said McCarty, “We don’t have that luxury in these large apparatus. So, we just basically have to hold on and take what the road is going to give us.”

During the school year, the buses also have to take this route. The state’s Department of Transportation says Belvue Road sees about 2,000 vehicles daily.

“The amount of traffic, just from the bus traffic to just normal traffic. This road is not designed to be so heavily used,” said Day.

The traffic around 2 p.m. on weekdays can back up East Belvue. Larry Smith says the noise is unmatched.

“Sounds like a train,” Smith said.

Drivers kept pointing out the bridge over Mountain Creek as looking run down. The SCDOT says the bridge is not a high priority for replacement. It’s weight-restricted, but the restriction is high. A 40-ton, five-axle tractor-trailer can legally cross it. Smith sees them all the time.

“It’s pretty rough, got a lot of potholes and big trucks and stuff coming down and making it worse,” said Smith.

West Belvue’s pavement isn’t as bad.

The DOT repaired three potholes over the last year.

“We just really need to get it fixed up. It’s time,” Day said, “It’s been years since anything’s really been done here.”

No word on the last time East or West Belvue Road was paved. And though the SCDOT takes into consideration routes that provide connectivity to economic centers, schools, emergency facilities, and so on, they do not have any plans for resurfacing at this time. They plan to evaluate it for the 2025 Pavement Improvement Program.

“With the amount of traffic that we see on that road, every day, it would be hard to believe it wouldn’t be a priority,” McCarty said.

Drivers also tell us they blame the utility work for some of the breakdown of Belvue Road. The DOT says they issues multiple utility permits—mostly along East Belvue Road. That includes three, metro sewer permits, gas, and Duke powerline upgrades.

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