Greenville county planners decide a connector around the southern perimeter of Greenville County is needed.
The Greenville Area Transportation Study supports the need and importance of a connector route in the southern corridor.
The southern Greenville inter-connecting roadway is added to Greenville County’s 20-year development plan.
A traditional South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) highway project still remained unfunded due to limited resources.
Congress helps the connector out with the appropriation of over $7 million for engineering, environmental, and right of way studies.
The transportation 2000 committee recommends that the Southern Connector be built as a toll road project.
The Greenville Area Transportation Group Study committee settles on the preferred route linking I-385 to I-85 in southern Greenville County. By July, groups started submitting bid proposals to the SCDOT for the planning, designing, financing and construction of the Southern Connector.
Interwest Carolina Transportation Group, LLC, teams consist of respected companies such as Interwest Management, Kutok Rock, Wilbur Smith Associates, Thrift Brothers, Florence & Hutchinson, Inc., Mesirow Financial, and Lehman Brothers.
State Supreme Court rules a referendum is not necessary to build. The decision stated that giving counties the power to approve or disapprove of state projects is unconstitutional. It also said Southern Connector did not violate any state laws because the state is not required to contribute tax dollars.
Construction begins on the Southern Connector in February of 1998.
On February 27th, 2001 the Southern Connector opened with a free trial period for motorists. On March 14th we began taking tolls and by July 9th the toll road accrued 1,000,000 transactions.
On October 2, 2003 – the Southern Connector Toll Road accrues 10 million transactions.
On September 15, 2006 – the Southern Connector Toll Road accrues 25 million transactions.
We proudly celebrated our 10-year anniversary by surpassing the 50 million transactions mark.
Next generation transponders are introduced. They are smaller, thinner, more accurate, and less obtrusive on windshields.
Cinemax's Banshee TV series filims an episode on location.
Cycling event raises money for charity.
Once again, we proudly celebrated our anniversary of 15 years by surpassing 75 million transactions.
We're proud of our history but the future of the Southern Connector is equally bright! As Greenville resumes its fantastic development pace that was the hallmark of the prior decade, our transportation needs need to develop as well. The Connector is responding to that need with the implementation of an all-new, back-office system designed to make handling your account a breeze. In addition to speed and feature improvements, your account information and transactions on our Toll Road are now more secure than ever!