Items of Interest

from the July 10, 2008, Post & Courier, by David Slade

Network of streets favored; Consultants recommend dropping 4-lane proposal

Johns Island — A network of new two-lane streets would be a better solution to traffic than widening Maybank Highway, a consultant told a crowd of more than 100 people Wednesday evening. Florida-based Hall Planning and Engineering had been hired by Charleston, Charleston County and the Coastal Conservation League to evaluate the options. Company President Richard Hall essentially agreed with what the city has been advocating: that Charleston County's Roadwise program should drop plans to make Maybank Highway four lanes wide, plus a turn lane, in favor of the new-streets alternative. The thinking is that an expanded street network, particularly around Maybank Highway and River Road, would spread traffic out and improve traffic flow, without damaging the rural character of Johns Island.

Road-widening projects would threaten grand live oaks that line the rural byways. A top priority, Hall said, should be eliminating the bottleneck on Maybank Highway approaching River Road, where traffic crossing the Stono River is squeezed from two lanes on the bridge to one on Maybank. The concept favored by Hall calls for creating a two-lane road parallel to Maybank Highway, between the bridge and Fenwick Hall.

Each two-lane road would be one-way, doubling the lanes to and from the bridge. Near Fenwick Hall, more two-lane roads would be added, all leading to River Road. With at least four ways to get from the bridge to River Road, traffic would be dispersed along with the backups at the intersection, Hall said.

The proposed network of roads would resemble a pitchfork, with the bridge being the handle. "I think the pitchfork idea sounds good," said Marissa Reilly of Johns Island. "Something needs to be done about that bottleneck."

Hall said his report is not in its final form yet. County Council is expected to review the report later this month.

Members of the audience for Hall's report, at the Johns Island branch of the Charleston County Library, were largely supportive of the concept. Some peppered him with questions about traffic, trees and property rights. Where and how, asked several people, would the city or county acquire the rights of way needed for all these new roads?

Hall said some property owners have already been contacted and agreed with the plan. He said many of the proposed roads would be centered around three village-like areas the city would like to see develop along Maybank Highway, and property owners would likely allow the roads because it would increase their property values.

Pearse Webster, of Wadmalaw, commutes daily to James Island but is not interested in seeing Maybank Highway widened. Webster didn't really like the idea of creating lots of new streets, either. He said it seemed preferable to widening Maybank Highway, but he objected to the city's concept of town centers. "If I wanted to live in a place where multi-story buildings come right up to the road, I would have moved to New York," he said.

Hall said that if what Johns Island really needed was a four-lane Maybank Highway, he would have recommended that option.

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from the June 27, 2008, Post & Courier, by Diane Knich

State asked to fix roads on Johns Is.

Resolution addresses safety issues on Main, Bohicket and River roads

One thing was clear to Charleston County Councilman Curtis Bostic after listening to residents at a public meeting on a possible toll road across Johns Island earlier this month: Most people who live on or travel through Johns Island think the main roads are dangerous. Bostic said he hasn't decided whether he supports building a toll road, known as the Sea Islands Parkway. But even if the County Council decides to build it, he said, something must be done to improve safety on Main, Bohicket and River roads and the Betsy Kerrison Parkway. Those are state, not county roads, he said, so the state needs to know what local residents think about them.

Bostic proposed and County Council approved a resolution Thursday to encourage the Charleston County Legislative Delegation's Roads and Bridges Committee to consider what kinds of safety mechanisms it can put in place to make Johns Island roads safer. "If we're going to be a prudent government, we have to share information we've gleaned with state government," Bostic said.

Councilman Paul Thurmond said he supports letting the state know what residents say about roads on Johns Island. But he still strongly supports building the toll road. "Congestion is the main reason we are dealing with such a terrific safety issue," he said, "and a cross-island parkway would deal with congestion."

Alex Dadok, a project manager for the Coastal Conservation League, after Thursday's meeting said, "this is a great resolution." The environmental group thinks the county should deal with the roads people use most before building new ones, Dadok said. "No matter what happens, people are going to use those roads," he said.

The council also approved awarding a $37 million contract to design and build the second phase of the Palmetto Parkway to Banks/Joint Venture. The company was one of three that bid on the project. When completed, the parkway will connect Ladson and Ashley Phosphate roads. The first phase was completed in 2007. It begins at Ladson Road and ends near Patriot Boulevard. The second phase will extend the parkway to Ashley Phosphate Road. The entire project should be complete in July 2010.

from the June 22, 2008, Post & Courier, by Diane Knich

Toll roads a tough sell in Palmetto State

Of the two in S.C., one is 'a spectacular financial failure' while the other is moving traffic above expectations

South Carolinians just don't seem to like the idea of having to pay to drive on a road. The state has only two toll roads. And as Charleston County Council considers building another that cuts across largely rural Johns Island, some people are looking closely at them to see if they're working.

The Coastal Conservation League, which is opposed to building a toll road on Johns Island, says the state's experience with pay-to-drive roads hasn't been good. Officials should be cautious when considering building more toll roads, the group says.

The Cross Island Parkway on Hilton Head Island, the state's first toll road, which opened in early 1998, is clearly the more successful of the two projects. On average, 26,000 cars use the road each day, according to the South Carolina Department of Transportation. That's 8,000 cars more than the original projections estimated for the road's 10-year mark. Financially, however, the project is just getting by, and SCDOT had to raise the toll this year for the first time, increasing it to $1.25 from $1.

The Southern Connector in Greenville, the state's second toll road, which opened in 2001, has failed dramatically to meet traffic and financial projections. The toll road runs along the southern end of Greenville and connects Interstate 85 to Interstate 385. In 2007, the road brought in about $5.4 million. That falls 62 percent short of the amount of money the road was expected to generate, according to the trade publication TOLLROADSnews.

Tim Brett, spokesman for the Southern Connector, said the road, which was built by a public-private partnership called the Connections 2000 Association, is having financial trouble because use has fallen far below projections. The projections were off likely because the original study included some miscalculations, he said. And, he added, there was an economic slowdown just after the road opened.

Alex Dadok, project manager for the Coastal Conservation League, called the Southern Connector "a spectacular financial failure."

Joe Bunting is chief operating officer of the Kiawah Island Community Association. He said the association's board and the mayor of the town strongly support building a toll road across Johns Island. The road would bring people across Johns Island to Kiawah Island more quickly, Bunting said. And it would divert traffic from slower-moving roads on Johns Island, making them safer. The association hasn't carefully reviewed the performance of the state's other toll roads, Bunting said, but he doesn't believe there's much to learn from the financially troubled Southern Connector. Drivers in that area can choose to pay to drive on the toll road or they can drive for free on the interstate. The toll road doesn't offer them much for their money, he said. But on the proposed Johns Island road, drivers would have the choice of driving on the toll road or on "slower-moving neighborhood streets," he said. Bunting believes many drivers would opt to use a toll road across Johns Island.

Kiawah Development Partners, which also supports building the toll road, recommended speaking to Wallace Hawkes, a special projects consultant for URS, a large engineering firm that builds toll roads.

Hawkes said that just like any other business, sometimes toll roads fail to meet financial expectations. "For every Southern Connector there are a lot of success stories out there," he said. Hawkes said Charleston County considered building a similar road across Johns Island in the mid-1990s. His company bid on the contract but the county didn't go ahead with the project, he said. Hawkes said that if the county decides to move forward with the Sea Islands Parkway, a consortium of companies, including URS, will likely bid on it. "The Sea Islands project looks like a very good project," he said.

But Dadok said the county should be careful. Toll roads can't immediately solve traffic problems, he said. Nearly a decade passed between the time Hilton Head's Cross Island Parkway was approved and the time it opened. "It wasn't a quick fix," he said.

from the June 20, 2008, Post & Courier, by Diane Knich

Toll road foes, fans speak out

JOHNS ISLAND — It was standing-room-only in the auditorium at St. Johns High School on Thursday as several hundred people gathered to let Charleston County Council know what they thought about a possible toll road across the island.  At least two-thirds of the audience appeared to oppose the road being built. They made their feelings known with thunderous applause for those who spoke against the project. County Council held the meeting to get public comments on a possible toll road, known as the Sea Islands Parkway, being built across the island. The parkway would begin at Maybank Highway and would stretch across the island.

Before the meeting, Johns Island resident Henry Rivers, who is strongly opposed to the road, said, "It's going to split the island in two." The road, he said, will only bring more development to the island. It's only being built to better serve visitors who will attend a PGA golf tournament on Kiawah Island in 2012, he said. But Frank McNulty, mayor of the town of Seabrook Island, said during the public-comments session that he and other Seabrook residents were not supporting the road for selfish reasons. "I don't have any horns," he said. He supports building the road because it would be safer than existing roads, he said. For him, "this situation has nothing to do with a golf tournament."

The idea of building a road across the island has been around since the mid-1990s. Council is looking at it again now to explore ways to reduce traffic congestion and make the island's roads safer, some members have said. Although the majority of the crowd Thursday was opposed to the road, an engineer hired by the county started the session with a presentation in support of it.

Chris Carlsten, an engineer with TranSystems, made a presentation he had conducted on traffic and road options on Johns Island. Carlsten said that after conducting the study, he thinks building the road across the island is "the preferred alternative" to reduce traffic and safety problems. It's a much better option than widening Bohicket and River roads, Johns Island's two main arteries, he said. Carlsten said he only looked at the road itself, not options for paying for it. But he understands there is no money available to build such a road. So a toll road may be the only option, he said. He estimated that the complete toll road project would cost about $155.7 million.

Carlsten's study was conducted in October and was an update of a 2001 study on a road across Johns Island. The county received 346 comments from citizens on traffic and development, Carlsten said. More than 60 percent of those who commented were in favor of building the new road, he said. Based on that data, Carlsten recommended building a road with a limited number of entry and exit points. It should be a four-lane road, and construction should minimize harm to live oak trees and the environment, he said.

In Carlsten's study, participants said the most-important considerations in deciding how to proceed with roads on Johns Island were safety and preserving the island's stately live oak trees and wetlands. Some people at the meeting Thursday agreed with the study. Gene Danielson, a resident of Seabrook Island, said "it's an infrastructure issue." "Nobody is stopping development, but they want to stop roads."

But Carmen Rivers, who lives on Johns Island, said the push to build the road is coming from residents of Kiawah and Seabrook islands who simply want "to get downtown fast." But, she said, "that's never been the way of life here. You can't change the culture because it meets your needs and wants."

from the May 30, 2008, Post & Courier, by Schuyler Kropf

Hearing planned on island toll road

Some on Johns Is. staunchly opposed

Residents of Johns Island, Kiawah and Seabrook will get another crack at giving their opinions on a possible toll road across Johns Island. Charleston County Council on Thursday agreed to sponsor a public hearing to gauge the community's views, including whether council should pursue asking the state Department of Transportation to open negotiations for a toll road.

Councilman Paul Thurmond said he didn't think the county has the authority by itself to undertake a toll road. Thurmond supports the toll concept, contending that in addition to providing a speedy path across the island, it would ease current pressure points. "This seems the best option to try to alleviate this problem," Thurmond said during a meeting of council's Planning and Public Works Committee.

But some local residents have become entrenched in their opposition to toll roads or to new roads at all, saying they would dramatically alter the island's rural character, open it to more development and force people off property where they have lived for generations. Many residents "don't even know it's happening," Bill Saunders, co-founder of Concerned Citizens of the Sea Islands, said of the newest wave of road debate.

Other opponents say not enough regional study has been done on Johns Island's growth and road woes.

No date for the first hearing was immediately released. It most likely will be after June 17. A site also has not been determined, but it would be on Johns Island and would be promoted by significant advertising, council members said Thursday.

Engineers for years have been studying possible ways to solve the island's traffic problems as growth and housing have overtaken an area once dominated by farms. Ideas for what now is billed as a "Cross Island Expressway" have been around from more than 12 years, but a consensus on road solutions has been tough to find.

Cost estimates for constructing a new 11-mile road across the island currently range from about $58 million for a non-toll road, and upwards of $150 million for a limited-access toll road.