Brushy Creek Intersection Project On Schedule

Despite recent heavy rains, the Brushy Creek Road/Pearson Road/Nancy Drive intersection project remains on schedule.

Councilman Chris Mann told members of the bicycle/pedestrian committee Thursday that a number of weather days had been built in to the project by the Department of Transportation.

“Believe it or not, it’s on schedule,” Mann said. “Those days when nothing was being done, those were actually scheduled days for nothing to be done.”

The project will place a traffic light at the intersection, as well as realign Nancy Drive to accommodate the signal.

City officials hope the signal will reduce traffic congestion along Brushy Creek Road and Pearson Road, especially at peak times in the morning and after 5pm.

Pat Webb, who serves on the city’s Planning Commission, said that the way Nancy Drive was originally offset from Brushy Creek Road made placing a signal there impossible.

“And having a signal there we always thought was critical,” she said. “Realigning Nancy was the only thing that was going to make that work.”

She said the project is a direct result of work done by the Traffic Planning Committee in previous years.

Mann said the project will include a turn lane and sidewalk work.

“It’s (a project) that I’ve seen from the beginning and I’m so tickled that Columbia listened, we listened and everybody got together,” Webb said.

Mann said the project has been a long time coming.

“It’s something that citizens have been hammering the city about, ‘We need this, we need this, we need this,’ for years,” he said. “I’ve been on council for eight years now and long before I’ve been on city council, we heard about this.”

The new intersection will also alleviate traffic on side roads off Pearson, which drivers are now using to avoid the congestion altogether, Mann said.

Webb agreed.

“That just put more pressure on a residential neighborhood,” she said.

She said the project is not meant to increase commercial business along that stretch of Brushy Creek Road.

Webb said she believes that portion of the road should be kept residential.

“Although it’s an improvement and a realignment, it’s not meant to increase traffic,” Webb said. “It’s meant to handle the traffic.”