SC Highway 707
South Carolina Highway 707 is a highway in Horry County, South Carolina in the Myrtle Beach metropolitan area that begins at U.S. Highway 17 Bypass across from Farrow Parkway near Socastee, South Carolina and terminates at U.S. Highway 17 Business in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina.
South Carolina Highway 707 began as an unpaved cow path in an area that was once largely rural. In the late 1970s, the route that South Carolina Highway 707 currently takes was previously signed as South Carolina Highway 544 from Murrells Inlet to the current intersection of Dick Pond Road in Socastee. At that time, South Carolina Highway 707 began at Socastee, followed Socastee Boulevard and parts of then-unbuilt U.S. Highway 17 Bypass north of the Myrtle Beach International Airport before terminating at U.S. Highway 501 on the route of the current Robert Grissom Parkway.
Much of the landscape traversed through the area was farmland until the 1980s when suburban growth began to occur outside of Myrtle Beach. Most of the growth around the area has continued into the 2000s, with development of golf courses, neighborhoods, and subdivisions being common in pockets along the fourteen-mile length. St.James High School opened on the highway near Burgess, South Carolina in 2002.
Because the area has experienced rapid growth within recent years, and because of increased traffic expected from the completion of Carolina Bays Parkway to S.C. 707, the South Carolina Department of Transportation has decided to widen the highway from Enterprise Road south of South Carolina Highway 544 to the Horry-Georgetown county line, approximately nine miles. Much of the $132,250,000 project will be funded through the one-percent Horry County sales tax increase by the 'Riding on a Penny' program. The first public meeting on the road project was held in August 2008. Right of way acquisitions are set to begin late in 2010 with construction starting in spring or summer of 2011.
The intersection of South Carolina Highway 707 with U.S. Highway 17 at Farrow Parkway has seen increased traffic, and one of the first priorities for Horry County's program 'Riding on a Penny' will be to build a grade-separated interchange connecting the two roads together. The projected cost of the project was $49,500,000. The recommended configuration of the interchange, due to limiting right-of-way space and heavy traffic demands, is a single-point urban interchange. Also, U.S. 17 must go over a 35-foot-high, 1,200-foot long bridge because the soil cannot support a stronger bridge without work that would have delayed the project. As of April 2010, the projected cost had more than doubled to $107 million. Interchange construction began June 6, 2011, and the projected completion date is August 2014.