Woodruff Road Traffic
If you’ve ever spent an hour or two on a Saturday afternoon sitting on Woodruff Road between Roper Mountain Road and Five Forks, wondering who to blame for the massive traffic, I have an answer for you. Some of the worst congestion is between Highway 385, and Highway 14. It didn’t used to be this way – I and others keep telling ourselves. Is Greenville’s growth to blame? Hardly. In fact, over 35 zoning changes in 25 years are to blame.
The common scapegoat for traffic problems is the Greenville County planning commission. The truth is, the planning commission is less to blame than many think. In 12 of the aforementioned 35 rezoning cases, the planning commission had denied zoning changes, only to be overridden by the Greenville County Council.
What prompted the Greenville County Council to override the planning commission’s professional advice, I don’t know. What I do know is that the zoning changes on Woodruff Road have created a horrible mess at certain times of the day and week.
To me the most important piece of advice is avoid much of Woodruff Road on weekends or whenever possible. While there is lots of good shopping, it certainly pays to learn the back roads including Garlington Road and Miller Road.
What Greenville needs most is a parallel route to Woodruff Road. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s possible given the geography and current zoning. Luckily, the growth appears to be slowing and Woodruff Road is pretty well saturated with businesses.
I live in the Woodruff Road area, and I am an advocate of all the opportunities it offers to the economy of Greenville. My only wish is that the Greenville County Council would’ve taken the planning commissions advice on the 12 developments that were turned from residential to commercial