It’s a road that sees 29,000 cars a day and averages about 60 crashes a year, and the City of Greenville is moving forward with plans to improve safety and increase connectivity. We’re talking about the Wade Hampton Boulevard corridor, specifically 1.5 miles from Church Street to Pleasantburg Drive.

We first told you about this project in June 2023. After public meetings and continued traffic studies, the city presented new conceptual renderings of what the roadway could look like in the future. It plans to break ground on the changes early next year.

The latest plans

The biggest change to Wade Hampton Boulevard would be reducing the corridor from seven lanes to five.

Looking at one section of the roadway (Karen Drive to White Oak Drive) with traffic projections for the year 2044:

If left as is — it would take 2.5 minutes to travel from Karen Drive to White Oak Drive.
With these proposed changes — it’s estimated that time would increase to about 3 minutes.

You can see the trade-off for that extra 30 seconds in the renderings:

More landscaping
Higher-visibility, signalized crosswalks
Protected bike lanes
Wide sidewalks

"We need to balance the needs of our roadways," Greenville's Director of Engineering Services Clink Link, saying the city hopes the road functions well for all users in the future, no matter if they’re in a car, on a bike, or walking.

Scroll through the rest of the renderings with other proposed changes:

Updated proposal: Reconfiguring the Church Street intersection to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety. | Rendering via The City of Greenville

Updated proposal: Adding a dedicated bulb-out u-turn lane to increase safety between intersections. | Rendering via the City of Greenville

The full strategic plan

The 2019 Wade Hampton Boulevard Strategic Plan outlines ideas to make the seven-lane corridor safer for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists.

Right now:

Sidewalks are in poor condition + too close to the road.
There are no bike lanes.
Hundreds of side streets and driveway crossings are hazardous for pedestrians.

By making the road safer, the city hopes to encourage higher economic investment along the boulevard, which will better serve the surrounding neighborhoods.

Provide feedback

The city will continue collecting feedback on the proposed changes. Dig into the full presentation from Wednesday, May 15 + submit any comments online.