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Transportation experts share ideas on traffic solutions
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
Revamping Mount Pleasant’s Coleman Boulevard and launching train service between Summerville and Charleston could help mitigate regional traffic in the future, according to local transportation engineers and municipal executives.
The options were among a number of transportation improvements discussed at the annual South District Institute of Transportation Engineers conference held March 30 through April 2 in Charleston. Some of the projects are in the planning stages but not all have firm commitments.
Jeff Davis, associate professor of civil engineering at The Citadel and chairman of this year’s event, said a hot topic lately among transportation engineers is the use of bicycles and more pedestrian-friendly traffic plans. The concept is highly popular in Charleston, he said, where it has significant applications.
“Transportation for many, many years was all about moving cars,” Davis said. “We built roads like Savannah Highway that are terribly unfriendly. Who wants to walk down Savannah Highway? Now we can build those major corridors in a much more pedestrian-friendly manner.”
Revitalizing Coleman Boulevard
Traffic improvements being planned for Coleman Boulevard will change the zoning ordinances for density there, according to presenters, who included representatives from the town of Mount Pleasant and the engineering firms Seamon Whitesides & Associates and Kimley-Horn and Associates.
Presenters said taller buildings would be permissible in some cases. The town will add a landscaped median to the boulevard along with some on-street parking and sidewalks with cutouts for trees.
The new streetscape will be designed to lower speed limits through the town and encourage pedestrian access to businesses, presenters said.
“What once was a sleepy little fishing village is now the fourth-largest city in South Carolina,” said Bill Eubanks of Seamon Whitesides. “You have to pick one — either you’ll be urban and more dense or you’ll create sprawl.”
Easing Summerville commute
Jennifer Humphreys, a senior transportation planner with Wilbur Smith Associates, discussed a commuter rail plan that could link Summerville and downtown Charleston.
“This is not news to people in the transportation community,” Humphreys said. “We all look at each other and we know we can’t just keep building lanes. Other modes of transportation are certainly needed. We just don’t have many commuter systems in the Southeast. Atlanta and Charlotte are probably the only two major metro areas where long-distance commuter trips are being served by transit.”
Humphreys said the Summerville-Charleston commuter rail has been in the planning stage for about three years and a capital investment analysis is under way. The rail is a real possibility, she said.
“There are definitely foreseeable limitations to widening (Interstate) 26,” Humphreys said. “I would say that geography certainly limits our ability to expand the highway system, being bound by rivers. The economic development community seems ripe for public-private partnerships in the development of a system.”
Area needs public transport
Howard Chapman, executive director of the Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority, said different types of public transit need to be considered instead of building roads.
Chapman said CARTA’s Express Bus system, launched a year ago, has seen phenomenal growth in ridership, increasing from 9,800 riders in February 2007 to 25,000 riders this past February. Express buses take people on longer routes, such as the route that goes from Kmart on Rivers Avenue in North Charleston to downtown Charleston without making stops. Chapman said they’re gauging interest in having the service go as far north as Summerville to Charleston.
“It shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you give people a reasonable option instead of commuting in the morning, they will do it,” Chapman said. “If you paid a little bit more to get rail, you would get your own reserved right of way and you wouldn’t have to contend with the headaches of I-26. You would still need a public transportation shuttle at the end of the line to get you where you needed to go, but that time would be minimal compared to the hour people are wasting coming from Summerville to downtown.”
Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. said the city has been working with the town of Summerville on the commuter rail plan, which he believes is the long-term solution to transportation problems on the interstate. Riley said cost estimates to widen I-26 with an additional lane are $40 million per mile, and a 21-mile segment of commuter rail would cost significantly less. He cited the commuter rail system of Nashville, Tenn., built for $1.5 million per mile and others built for $5 million per mile.
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. Email her at kdayton@scbiznews.com.
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