‘It’s a scary situation’: Indian Land neighbors want change on road where crashes are common

INDIAN LAND, S.C. (WBTV) - People living in a neighborhood in the Indian Land area say they have had enough.

People living off Regent Parkway say there have been more than 20 crashes in that 845 feet stretch of road in almost a decade. They say those are just the ones that are documented. They have been asking the county for help for years but the county says it could not help until recently.

Cheryl Maggioli cannot say enough good things about her neighborhood.

”The whole neighborhood is perfect. I’m thinking this will be my forever home,” says Maggioli.

However, she opened up about one major problem she has with it.

”People come down speeding,” she says.

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A neighbor, Kristen Mesisco sent us this video showing us exactly what Maggioli’s talking about. The sound of tires screeching became an all too common sound for the people living here.

“It’s the screeching of tires that wakes us out of a dead sleep, then we hold our breath and wait for a boom and just hope the house doesn’t shake when it happens,” says Mesisco.

”I always think that someone could come right through that front window while I’m watching TV,” says Maggioli.

Although Maggioli says it has not happened yet, video shows people have come close over and over and over again. The concern ramping up is that kids and even pets could get hurt or worse.

”I don’t want to sell it but I don’t want to take the chance that my life is in danger either,” she says.

Neighbors say they have been complaining to local leaders for years about how dangerous this road is especially this curve. I took those concerns right here to Lancaster County Public Works where I got answers about what’s going on with this project.

”Now’s the time to put it on the priority list and have some repairs done,” Catoe.

Public Works Director Jim Catoe tells WBTV the road, Regent Parkway, just became a county-owned road in March. Catoe claims for the last few years of complaints, the county has had its hands tied.

”We moved as quickly as we could once the road became the counties. We’ve started our engagement with the design professionals back in May,” he says.

He says the project will be a complete overhaul—fixing the road itself and trying to tamper the curve. Catoe says projects similar to this one tend to take a long time and have a lot of parts to them. WBTV asked Catoe when people living in that area could expect a finished project.

”Timelines for roadway work are really hard to pin down because like everything else delays in the workforce, supplies, things of that nature,” he says.

Catoe says this project could take a while to complete so WBTV asked him if the county was willing to put up guardrails like neighbors have been requesting, but that is going through a process as well. Engineers did go out to the road to assess how guardrails could work.

”We would definitely wait on the recommendation of the engineer and discuss it internally to see what needed to be done,” he says.

Neighbors like Maggioli say after all that discussion though it could be too late.

”God forbid what if something happens. What are you going to say to our family? We were in the process,” she says.

The county has explained the timeline for when we can expect the redesign to be completed but they haven’t been definitive about what, if anything, they can do to protect these homeowners until that happens. Right now, that’s our lingering concern,” says Mesisco.

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