US 29 (Church Street) Bridge over E. Broad Street Alternative Study Report

The US 29 (Church Street) Bridge over E. Broad Street is a Greenville landmark, providing residents and visitors with panoramic views of the downtown skyline and a key, non-motorized connection from the Reedy River park areas to the downtown core. It is also the only high-capacity connection between southern Greenville and the central business district; however, its bridge deck was rated “poor,” leading SCDOT to develop deck rehabilitation plans.

As part the rehabilitation project, the City of Greenville requested upgraded multi-modal amenities to enhance the non-motorized experience, including protected bike and pedestrian facilities, new bridge lighting and railings, and incorporation of City branding. SCDOT engaged RK&K to evaluate alternatives for incorporating these amenities. The scope of the project was to evaluate opportunities to provide enhanced multi-modal connections across the bridge while not limiting the operational capacity.

The project began with RK&K analyzing the existing bridge’s structure, girders, substructure, roadway geometry, existing operations, and crashes. From this data, we developed ten alternatives to achieve the City’s and SCDOT’s goals. These alternatives included roadway capacity reductions, separated bike/pedestrian facilities, raised pedestrian facilities, reversible lanes, reduced lane widths, and space for a TL-4 barrier. Once each alternative was evaluated for geometric constraints, we made appropriate revisions to fit on the existing structure. RK&K then analyzed the alternatives using traffic software Synchro/SimTraffic and determined that the traffic operations associated with the capacity reductions would lead to undesirable operations. We refined the remaining alternatives with detailed cost estimates and produced a cost-benefit analysis.