Parents with students attending Burgess Elementary School will be getting the gift of a new traffic light over the holidays the will help make their trip to and from school much safer and easier after the first of the year.

The Burgess Improvement Council started talking about the problems getting on and off Holmestown Road at Scipio Lane, where the school is located last year. Scipio lane is also home to addition facilities such as a recreation center, recycling center, fire department and government building, adding more traffic, said Principal Donna Hooks, and Holmestown carries a lot of traffic, especially in the mornings.

The council put in a formal request last spring to the S.C. Department of Transportation,  who along with Horry County, did a traffic study and decided the volume of traffic was enough for a traffic light, said Joe Burch, Horry County Schools planning coordinator. Horry County has put money for the light into it this year and is funding it, he said, and work already has begun.  The light should be up and working early next month.

“Parents are very excited about it,” said Hooks, who has received responses from an email she sends them each week. “That’s the kind of thing a School Improvement Council can do. They were instrumental and the driving force behind this.”

Source: The Sun News