GETTING ANSWERS: Donaldson Road

GREENVILLE, S.C. (FOX Carolina) - Every week, we are checking off the roads you submit and getting to the bottom of whether or not officials will improve their conditions.

Out of more than 12 hundred roads, you wanted us to look at Donaldson Road, in Greenville County. This Greenville Road connects with Highway 25 (Augusta Road) twice.

Christ Grant sent one of the submissions.

“Literally, every night since I’ve been living here, all I’ve been hearing is...it sounds like vehicles and trucks and everything are coming through our living room,” Grant said.

Grant hears it more than 4,000 times a day because that’s how many vehicles the state’s Department of Transportation says drive past his home daily.

“Sometimes, we have to turn the volume up on our TV; which, sometimes, can be deafening because of the way that the noise is from the traffic—just from the bumps in the road and the potholes in the road,” said Grant.

Donaldson Road is described as a loud place to live, and Nicci Green says a tough place to drive.

“You feel it, definitely. It’s honestly like they’ve taken rocks and thrown it in there and just kind of patched it over, Green said.

The SCDOT received eight work orders to fix potholes over the past year.

And of those thousands of vehicles, Charlie Smith says the big trucks are becoming the biggest nuisance.

“A lot of traffic—mainly 18-wheeler traffic, I understand that there’s business down here, the Donaldson Center. I’m sure with this being a residential area, they can find different routes,” Smith said.

Donaldson Road starts cracking as soon as you merge from Augusta Road. Then, as you pass White Horse Road Extension, the potholes are relentless. They gather along the edges of the road.

“I really think they should repave the whole road, because of the traffic, the 18-wheeler traffic,” said Smith.

Smith describes the pavement.

“It’s rough,” Smith said, “It’s rugged out here, many potholes.”

There’s a high spot near Falley Avenue. When big trucks go over it, it sounds like they’ve been dropped off a cliff.

The DOT says they investigated this after I brought it to their attention and will mill it down to make it smoother, but Grant says smoothing out the rest of the road isn’t just about convenience.

“It’s about the welfare of our families out here,” said Grant, “It’s about the safety of our children.”

Despite this, The SCDOT says Donaldson Road is not a resurfacing candidate.

“They’re worried about other places than this little area over here,” Green said.

We did as if 18-wheelers are supposed to be driving in this residential area. The DOT explains Donaldson is a state secondary road. So, it does not restrict trucks. However, residents can request the local government to champion their plea for an ordinance and pass it along to the state.

Report a road here.

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