Riverland Drive, Central Park Road – Need for Bus Stops

Developer provided bus stop, Highway 17

Update- Meeting set for March 13 for public comment. 

* PUBLIC COMMENT MEETING 3/13 **

Public Comment Meeting
Wednesday, March 13
6:30-8 pm
2nd Floor, Council Chambers
4045 Bridge View Drive
North Charleston, SC 29405

For more details see: https://mailchi.mp/0f3cba390238/help-james-is-get-bus-stops-on-wed-march-13?e=[UNIQID]

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The following memorandum was submitted to Charleston County Council on Feb. 21 regarding the proposed funding of the intersection improvements on James Island at Riverland Drive and Central Park Road (next to the Elementary School). No bus stops were included in the conceptual plan, which was signed off on by two other prominent local transportation advocacy organizations. Passage of the Complete Streets Act by the SC State Legislature will make commissions like this less likely in the future.

You can contact your County Council representative by phone or email, The Council meetings are live streamed. 

From           Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, Inc.

To                Charleston County Council

Re                Riverland Drive, Central Park Road –

Need for Bus Stops

Dated Feb. 21, 2019

         

Bus Stop, Mt. Pleasant Town Hall

Now suffering from a greatly reduced quality of bus service, this part of James Island needs sheltered bus stops to properly access its remaining Tri County Link bus route. Its CARTA bus service was taken away earlier this year. We hope to work for the return of more frequent bus service with full sized vehicles in the future.

            It is essential that proper, sheltered bus stops be included in the final plan for this intersection. The County says it maintains a complete streets policy. Voters made it clear that they supported and wanted better regular bus service in the 2016 referendum. Funding for bus stops for this intersection can be found in those sales tax funds.

            Not only does this stop serve people in the area, but this is also where people traveling out to Charleston to reach the Magistrate’s Court, Elementary School and work in the area will need to wait for their return trips home.

            We cannot expect our transit system to function without proper stops. Riders will not use a system which requires them to endure the humiliating experience of waiting in the rain, often in the weeds and mud on a narrow shoulder between and open ditch and a road chocked with dangerous traffic. They need a safe place to wait and sidewalks on which they can safely reach those stops. In the absence of such stops, more pedestrian accidents and deaths are the only possible outcome.

           

Please do not approve funding for this plan without the requirement that bus stops, for both directions of travel, be included.

            We would like to thank Jeff Barnes of the COG for raising this issue in his letter to you.

            We hope council will join us in supporting passage of H3656, the Complete Streets Act now pending before the State Legislature so that all new road projects will include functional provisions for pedestrians, transit riders and cyclists. Doing so will reduce traffic congestion and the number of injuries and deaths occurring in this county, which is embarrassed by a rate of fatal pedestrian and cyclist traffic collisions roughly three times that of any other county in the state.

William J. Hamilton, III
Executive Director, Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit
Attorney at Law
171 Church St. Ste. 160
Charleston, SC 29401

(843) 870-5299, wjhamilton29464@gmail.com