But Seabrook, Kiawah residents say it's overdue JOHNS ISLAND -- A few coins in a toll booth basket won't open any gate past the opposition to a new parkway across this rural sea island. Residents and an environmental group were dismayed at what they called a secretive decision by Charleston County Council to go ahead with planning the controversial, limited-access "Sea Islands Greenway" to the resort islands of Kiawah and Seabrook, and to make it a toll road or pay for it with user fees. The road won't solve the traffic safety problems that the resort islands' residents say it's needed for, Johns Island residents said. Better law enforcement and improvements to existing roads would. Resort island residents, on the other hand, said it's about time. "If you have a hole in the bottom of your boat, you don't call the water company," said Johns Island resident Sam Brownlee, who's been driving the island roads for 52 years. "What makes the road dangerous? It's the drivers. You're still going to have the same drivers on the new road." Brownlee pointed out how tougher enforcements and improvements made to U.S. Highway 17 near Gardens Corner have cut down on wrecks there. Plans for a parkway have been bandied about for more than a decade, said Kiawah resident Joanne McRae. "To be honest, anytime I would drive down Bohicket Road or up River Road, my husband would look at me and say, 'Drive carefully,' and I would say the same to him," she said. "If we have to pay for it, fine. Our lives are more important than user fees." The decision Thursday to go ahead with a study on potential routes was hatched so quietly that some council members complained about not knowing enough about it. The new parkway, part of an overall roads plan for Johns Island, was approved 5-2. A final vote is planned for Tuesday. Such a road would serve residents of Seabrook and Kiawah and the workers headed there. Johns Island residents, though, said workers wouldn't pay to use the road. A toll road "is probably feasible," said lifelong resident Bill Saunders skeptically, "it doesn't seem to work anywhere else." "Another road won't help the people on Johns Island. It will probably help the people on Kiawah and Seabrook islands," Saunders said. The vote was just one more decision made about the island without involving its people, he said. A land-use program manager for the Coastal Conservation League agreed. "That's a portrait of bad government. That's not transparent government," said Josh Martin. Johns Island residents have been opposed to any new road for some time, said Jerry Cummin, Seabrook Island town councilman. "I think a lot of us (on Seabrook) feel the same way (as Johns Island residents) about Bohicket and River roads. When my wife and I first drove down Bohicket Road, a state scenic highway, we fell in love with it. We don't want to do anything to disturb that. The (traffic) safety is extremely important. All people have to do is look at the number of developments that are coming. It's a lot more traffic and nothing's really being done about that," he said. A new road would divert some of that traffic.

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