People react to traffic backed up for miles because of the I-77 Catawba River Bridge project

YORK COUNTY, S.C. (WBTV) -Traffic slammed as crews shutdown part of the I-77 bridge over the Catawba River.

Repairs are expected to take three weeks if everything goes as planned. Today, drivers got a glimpse of just how bad traffic is going to be throughout all of York County.

”It’s dumb. It’s stupid. It sucks,” said one driver.

Those are just some of the words drivers are using to describe the pile up of traffic on I-77.

However, on these county wide backups everyone has an opinion.

”We need it. The area’s growing and we gotta do something so. One day at a time,” said one man.

”They should have done this on a later date. A different way. It could have been a better way to get this done,” said one woman.

No matter how you feel, there was not a lot of places to escape being bumper to bumper. Even alternate routes turned a five minute trip into 50 minutes. The South Carolina Department of Transportation has a detour on Highway 21 and the other alternative routes are:

▪ Hands Mill Highway/Highway 274 to Highway 49, York

▪ Highway 49 across Buster Boyd Bridge in Lake Wylie

▪ Highway 5 to Highway 521 North in Lancaster County

▪ Highway 160 (Fort Mill) to Highway 521 in Indian Land

”I’m going to be late picking up my daughter. I just texted them and said it’s probably going to be like 3:30 until I pick up my kids. Yeah so that’s not fun,” said a woman an hour late to pick up her kids.

”It told me it was going to take me an hour just to get five miles down the road,” said another woman.

While some are trying to stay positive about the added hours.

”At least I got some good music. I’ve got Sirius radio so I’m happy about that,” said a woman traveling to Florida for Mother’s Day.

Others are not feeling that same optimism.

”Not good. Yeah. I hate being out there when it’s traffic like this. And I have to pick up my kids at this time so this sucks,” said one woman.

This will last until May 24 so you need to be aware that traffic can be like this almost every day until then.

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