City's proposal does not include elevated freeway
Charleston's new alternative plan for completing the Mark Clark Expressway
calls for using ground-level streets with low speed limits, connected by
bridges across the Stono River, rather than an elevated highway from West
Ashley to Johns and James islands.
The city calls the proposal a hybrid plan, more like a boulevard than an
expressway.
The Coastal Conservation League, which has proposed a road plan of its own,
calls the city's plan a farce.
"The plan has not been analyzed; there is no documentation. It's literally a
back-of-the-napkin plan," league Executive Director Dana Beach said. "For
the city to say that this farce they call a boulevard is an alternative is
an insult to the public."
The city submitted its one-page map to the S.C. Department of Transportation
as the league was finishing a plan that Beach said took two years and
$150,000 to prepare. The league's plan calls for improving traffic
conditions on Savannah Highway, Folly Road and Maybank Highway rather than
building new bridges to Johns Island.
City's new proposal -
The city of Charleston recently submitted a new proposal for an
"at-grade," not elevated, parkway, with speed limits of about 35 miles per
hour along the original approved route for I-526. (PDF)
Mayor Joe Riley said a new connection from James Island to Johns Island and
West Ashley is necessary, and the city's alternative could be a way to do it
without the noise of an elevated highway across James Island, and without
running an expressway through James Island County Park.
"This is an unusual interstate extension, or beltway," Riley said. "Perhaps
it argues for touching the ground in a more gentle way."
The city's proposal would look more like Maybank Highway on James Island
than the existing Interstate 526 (the Mark Clark Expressway). The plan calls
for using Central Park Road on James Island as a part of the proposed link
to the James Island connector at Folly Road.
At a Post Office branch on the corner of Folly and Central Park roads
Monday, several James Island residents took a look at the city's alternative
and had mixed reactions. Mary Beth Berry, who lives near Harborview Road,
said she doesn't like any of the options for completing the Mark Clark, and
suggested money would be better spent improving mass transit.
"We're trying to solve a problem with roads, and that will never solve the
problem," she said. "There's got to be a better way."
James Q. Stevens, who also lives near Harborview, said that given the choice
between an expressway and streets with sidewalks, he'd prefer the city's
alternative, but he's also open to the Coastal Conservation League's idea.
Previous story
Proposal rules out extended highway on I-526,
published 1/26/09
"We have spent too much time and effort taking care of the needs of the
automobile," he said.
The idea of an expressway connecting to I-526 goes back to at least the
early 1990s, when Kiawah and Seabrook island residents lobbied for a toll
highway running from the end of I-526 at Savannah Highway to Johns Island
and then across the island toward Kiawah and Seabrook.
That idea fell by the wayside but was later replaced by a plan to connect
I-526 in West Ashley to the James Island connector at Folly Road, via Johns
Island. A separate plan for a new road from Kiawah and Seabrook to the
proposed highway extension remains under debate.
"I think we ought to look at all options and alternatives that might
alleviate traffic problems in our city," said Councilman Tim Mallard,
representing part of Johns and James islands.
In contrast to the city's plan for development on Johns Island, which was
created over the course of several years and involved dozens of public
meetings, the I-526 alternative was quietly submitted to the Transportation
Department without public discussion. Riley said the highway alternative
grew out of the other planning efforts and would be subjected to public
input if the Transportation Department decides to include the idea among the
proposed alternatives for the Mark Clark.
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