PYEONGTAEK, South Korea — It wasn’t long ago that motorists heading for Camp Carroll faced a sometimes slow, dusty progress along an old and heavily traveled two-lane road.
But beginning March 17, motorists now make the drive along a spanking new four-lane thoroughfare that South Korean officials opened with fanfare. They call it the Waegwan Gateway Road. Waegwan is in the southeastern region of the peninsula, about 40 minutes north of Daegu.
And because Camp Carroll turned over a piece of its land to be used as part of the new road, the local Chilgok County government in turn spent $3.9 million to pay for several improvements to the installation, including:
A new perimeter wall with concertina wire along the roadway.Renovation of guard houses at gates 1 and 2, including installation of turnstiles at each.Three new buildings.Dedicated traffic lanes connecting the roadway and Camp Carroll.The wall and gate work significantly improved installation security, said Kevin Jackson, chief spokesman for the Army’s Area IV Support Activity in Daegu.
The new buildings replaced outdated Quonset huts and “are significantly better than what we had in the past,” Jackson said. “So it’s a tremendous improvement in terms of appearance and also quality.”
Workers began the $20 million project in March 2005 and wrapped up earlier this month. The new four-lane stretches 1.3 miles from the Waegwan interchange to the Gwaseon Bridge in downtown Waegwan.
About 455 yards of that stretch includes land turned over by Camp Carroll. Gardens and retaining walls along the thoroughfare also were built, as were walls to reduce traffic noise for nearby residents.
The new buildings at Camp Carroll went up inside the post’s southern boundary near Gate 2.
One is a single-story building housing the 20th Area Support Group’s “cannibalization point,” where useable parts are salvaged from equipment that otherwise would be turned in for disposal.
A second one-story building now houses the property book office of the Army’s Materiel Support Center-Korea, which operates a major repair, maintenance and supply depot at Camp Carroll.
A third building stands two stories high and houses the post’s Korean Employees Union offices.
