Pendarvis Introduces Bill to Accelerate Transit Oriented Development in SC

 

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Image left- Representative Marvin Pendarvis rising the #11 CARTA Bus stopped at the Charleston International Airport. Since this image was taken a lighted shelter has replaced the basic outdoor bench at this stop.

North Charleston, SC- Legislation introduced Public Transit carefully fitted into SC communities which are allowed to leverage the mobility it offers to everyone will help create walkable, urbanized areas with lower crime, higher incomes, more rewarding civic and cultural life and less traffic congestion.

On Feb. 23, 2003, SC State Representative Marvin Pendarvis (D-CHS) introduced a bill H. 4013 in the SC House of Representatives to amend Title 6 of the S. C. Code by adding Chapter 39 regarding Transit-Oriented Development Projects. It has been Referred to House Committee on Ways and Means.

Image, Right, PlanningMap for N. Charleston Community improvement Meeting, 2018.

The district Pendarvis represents contains most of the separated busway section of the State’s first planned rapid transit system, the Lowcountry Rapid Transit System (LCRT) https://lowcountryrapidtransit.com/ online.  Charleston County voters approved funding for construction of the LCRT and other improvements to bus transit in November 2016. The LCRT is a Bus Rapid Transit system based on operation of articulated electric buses in dedicated bus only lanes, accelerated boarding and advanced electronic enabled wayfinding and fare payment.

The legislative findings set out in the bill begin by stating that, “Public Transit is a valuable element of providing mobility to the people of South Carolina and functions best in communities where density, walkable infrastructure, cycling and short distance transportation services can connect residents and workers efficiently between home, work, shopping, civic opportunities, recreation and education.” It goes on to note that transit benefits drivers by reducing congestion and making use of the existing roadways more efficient.

Image, Left, Children at N. Charleston Farmer's Market plannng model transit system for the Lowcountry on 12 x 16 foot map, October 2019

The bill notes that Transit benefits the disabled and other groups not often considered in making decisions about transportation planning, including “those who have lost their driver's license or lack insurance, reducing the number of illegal drivers on the road the costs of the collisions in which they are involved, which increases the cost of uninsured motorist insurance coverage.”

Unlike many bills introduced in the legislature which have been drafted by national special interest groups, this bill was drafted by Representative Pendarvis with the assistance of Lowcountry Transit riders, people who actually ride transit on a daily basis in his district. Research failed to find similar legislation in other states, so laws from other countries such as New Zealand and Canada were reviewed to help complete the proposed law. The law allows for establishing district and a district authority that can work with government and the private sector to build or redevelop neighborhoods, commercial properties and manufacturing facilities in areas where transit is or will be available.

Image, Right Jennifer  Saunders and the late Dave Crossley rampaging with Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit for passage of the half penny sales tax for Transit, Transportation and Greenspace during the Coastal Carolina Fair in October 2016.

The Berkeley Charleston Dorchester Council of Governments, The City of North Charleston, The City of Charleston and the Town of Lincolnville are already planning for improvements to the areas along the LCRT to create a safer, cleaner and more rewarding community where car ownership will not be a necessity. While this type of development can’t be constructed everywhere and may not be desired in other areas, its critical to the Elderly, Disabled, workers in Charleston’s critical hospitality Industry, Students and those otherwise unable or unwilling to drive to have some areas available in a region which are adapted to their needs.

Representative Pendarvis will now work with transit advocates, organizations working to build affordable housing and local governments to help the bill H. 4013 get the necessary committee hearings and votes in the house to cross over to the senate and ultimately be ratified by the Governor’s signature over the rest of the current two year legislative session. The LCRT is currently planned to begin rapid transit operation between the Fairgrounds in Ladson and MUSC in downtown Charleston in 2028.

Image, Left, Pizzeria Owner Ben D'Allesandro posting banner supporting improved transit in downtown Charleston, April 2017.

For more information on the Transit Oriented Development Bill see the full text at https://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess125_2023-2024/bills/4013.htm or see the Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, Inc. at www.bfltransit.com online. Representative Pendarvis can be contacted through his legislative office at (803) 212-6716 or via https://www.scstatehouse.gov/member.php?code=1457812326 online. Pendarvis is planning community forums to discuss this and other issues related to improving the quality of life in his district and elsewhere in SC in the future.

Transit to the Atlantic, Summerville to the Sea

What We Need to Do

Millicent Middleton, Sea Island Unit Transit Advocate

The people of Summerville, Ladson and Lincolnville (hereinafter LinLadSum) have been telling us they want the rapid transit line completed for three years. It is time for the people of the North to drive the glacial and obscure planning process to completion and yank the concrete, asphalt and metal out of government to see it constructed and running from Summerville to the Sea.

The people of Ladson, Lincolnville and Summerville have the rights to demand a Bus Rapid Transit Line to Charleston which runs in its own, dedicated lanes, has comfortable stations and completes the trip in 59 minutes as promised in the I26 alt study . We must demand that now, before July 10, 2020 through their “LCRT online meeting” and our own socially distanced advocacy. We’re asking you to submit your comments at their online meeting and paste copies of what you tell them into the comments here so we can share it with other.

Transit Advocates Discover Unrest in the Land of the Cars

Pendarvis Campaign working on Rivers Ave.

State Rep. Marvin Pendarvis pushed us into the area, where we had done almost no work, to see what we could find. The results from Carol Dotterer and Louise Brown’s initial canvass were a shock. (Note: Marvin Pendarvis has not approved the content of this blog. He doesn’t control us. We don’t control him. He is happy to talk about his own views on transit and transportation issues and has introduced five bills on the subject.)

Despite the fading exurban landscape (now turning into subdivisions and apartments) and abundance of pickup trucks, people along Highway 78 were ready for transit. In Lincolnville, we met people who had moved here from New York to take care of elderly family members and become imprisoned in immobility. We found the area’s largest business incubator, not in a shiny government subsidized building downtown, but in the Ladson Flea Market. They were ready. Nobody had even talked to Lincolnville about the project which was to pass through their town, but they were ready. They reminded us their town had been founded by African Americans who sought freedom with their own, independent town and mobility through their connection to the Railroad. In downtown Summerville we found a business district struggling with parking and traffic issues full of people ready to ride.

Transit Advocates in downtown Summerville.

Carol and Louise also found failure. Streets and communities lacked sidewalks. The existing LINK bus service was unreliable and infrequent even though they had delightful drivers who simply wouldn’t do impossible things with a bus. Attendance at the Coastal Carolina Fair had plummeted over the years due to traffic problems which had now cured themselves. In nearby Sangaree, we found an aging 1980s large scale development stripped of its bus service where poverty and immobility were reducing resident’s quality of life. We attempted to leaflet the Summerville Senior Center, where they called the Police Department to run our quiet leafleting effort off their property, we saw a man walk out to the edge of their property, old and frail, visit a tree alone and then struggle back with his cane. Had their been barbed wire around the perimeter, it wouldn’t have been a more effective prison for him.

Autocentric Oppression

Carol Dotterer with BRT Survey mark

The car is mandatory in LinLadSum. It dominates the landscape, the politics, and the lives of people. Those who have one, are slaves to it, spending as much as three hours a day locked inside it. Running simple errands might take an hour. They must buy more cars for their teenaged children in hopes they can escape the unending trial of parent as chauffer between the empty communities where nothing happens and the remote soccer fields and shopping centers where time can be somewhat better spent. The empty houses surrounded by the bare spots in the grass where all these expensive, sometimes broken cars are parked are barely homes. They’re places full of people so busy and exhausted trying to go somewhere that no one is really there. It’s cruel and stupid. It has to end.

For the elderly, poor, disabled, and young who don’t have access to the automobile. Survival is a humiliating marathon of begging for rides, calling Uber and doing without. There are desperately needed affordable apartments in Lincolnville sitting empty because you cannot survive there without a car and many elderly people have outlived or live far from their families. For the carless of Ladson, trip the grocery store is a goal requiring days of planning for the starts to align. A trip for pleasure or to explore the landscape tourists travel from around the world to see is an unimaginable luxury. The precious begged for rides must be conserved for the doctor, pharmacy and store. If you can walk to the LINK route, the bus may not show up at all or simply drive past. There is no bench or shelter to wait.

LinLadSum Does Not Have to be this Way

It does not have to be this way. Ladson, Lincolnville and Summerville have public transit which would embarrass a third world country. We’ve met people who know from personal experience that it is inferior to what they have in Ethiopia. Our Latino friends in Ladson assure it Brazil is better.

BLFT staff with transit planning activity

Bad transit preserves the political power of the men (they are almost all men) who fear what unleashing the creativity, citizenship and power of people in their region might do to their eroding grip on control. Parents who can show up for meetings. Seniors who can visit each other without being protected from transit leafleting. Young people who can explore and learn about the world. Freedom remains a dangerous thing.

The voters of Charleston County have already appropriated 250 million dollars to build and operate a Bus Rapid Transit Line to Summerville in their 2016 half penny sales tax referendum. The people of Ladson and Lincolnville have been paying for it with higher sales taxes since May of 2017. In Summerville, the tiny section needed probably doesn’t require a bond referendum.

We were promised a trip from downtown Charleston to Summerville in 59 minutes. Recently the Convil of Governments has proposed a system which runs in ordinary traffic from Charleston Southern to the edge of Downtown Summerville. Politicians in Summerville have proposed a Park and Ride lot on 5^th Avenue which would be five long blocks from Hutchison Square. The fact that someone might want to walk to or from the Bus Rapid Tranist system to downtown Summerville doesn’t seem to matter to them. They’re building a system for people to drive cars to parking lots to fit in the car saturated world they feel secure in.

Failure Alert

Lincolnville Town Hall

A Rapid Transit System which attempts to operate in regular traffic on the long, congested six miles of Highway 78 will fail. It won’t be rapid. It will be snarled in Traffic Congestion. It won’t be system because it won’t be able to keep a schedule any better than the exasperated drivers who can’t tell their wives, husbands and children when they might get home in their cars now. Finally, it won’t be transit because few people will ride it. Slow buses which wander around and maybe show up somewhere sooner or don’t work. In theory you can take the #1 CARTA Express to the Otranto Park and Ride and the LINK to Summerville and complete the trip (to the edge of town) in an hour and 28 minutues. In practice my best time, in several tries, has been two hours. It once took 2 hours and 45 minutes, when Ironcially, I attempted to take transit to a transit and road planning meeting at Azalea Park.

A few weeks ago, Lowcountry Up is Good, a locally based political action committee leafleted parts of Ladson in a lightening storm with the help of young volunteers organized by Linda Saylor. It was the last day before the election. When we told the kids there was no tomorrow, to just come back in. They asked if their efforts might decide the election. I told them they could. They hurled the doors of the van open and visited 250 houses in the driving rain while thunder and lighting blasted around them.

Those young people deserve a world they can grow in, explore, and prosper in. It we build a world which doesn’t do that, they’ll destroy us and build their own. The tired priorities of old men who like things as they are, slow, isolating and dysfunctional, need to get out of the way.

What LinLadSum Residents Need to Do Now

Go to their online LCRT meeting.Demand what you have paid for and been promised:

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  Help us get their attention
  

  Rapid transit operations in dedicated lanes on Highway 78 from River’s Ave to the edge of Downtown Summerville.
• Safe, comfortable, lighted stops which can be reached safely from the side of the road.
• A system which can complete the trip from Line Street in downtown Charleston to downtown Summerville in 59 minutes. 
• Service all the way to Hutchison Square in Downtown Summerville with a stop in the business district near there.
• Connecting Service in downtown Charleston at a safe, comfortable station on Line Street which connects to Folly Beach and the Isle of Palms.

If you want something more, don’t stop there. If you are in Ridgeville, tell them it needs to come to where you live. Linda Saylor and the lightning crew are working for you in Summerville, but they need a lot of help.

We have other blogs with more information on this project:

• Dhaka BRT Line 3 (Gazipur to Airport) If you think USA is #1, get a stiff drink before watching this. This is state of the art BRT. 
• Transit Enable the Lowline A look at the big mistake being planned for the South end of the BRT line.
• Progress is Possible (General Overview) 
• Lowcountry Futurescape
  
• Christian King answers 10 questions about transit, the best Candidate response we've ever received.

Proterra Electric Bus made in SC

Then take whatever you’ve told them at their online meeting and copy it into to comments to this blog post where the public can see it. The COG has already told Charleston County Council that all 1500 comments submitted through their online meeting are positive. Let’s put our demands where they can be shared and known. We’ll put hard copies of what you say here in front of your leaders and try to make them ready it. If that doesn’t work, we’ll set up banners by the roadway big enough for them to read when they’re not using their cell phone to tell their wives and husbands they’ll be stuck in traffic for another hour.

Written by 
William J. Hamilton, III
Executive Director, Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit
(843) 870-5299
wjhamilton29464@gmail.com

Pendarvis, Transit Advocates Help Move SC Towards Safer, Complete Streets at Legislature, On OHM Radio at 4 pm Wed.

Above, Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit members at SC State Capital

The “Complete Streets” Bill, H 3656,  was amended and Unanimously passed out of the Transportation Subcommittee of the Education and Public Works Committee of the South Carolina House of representatives after a contested hearing where advocates for reducing the toll of deaths and injuries suffered by Pedestrians, Transit Riders and Cyclists from across SC. Rep. Marvin Pendavis probed the State Department of Transportation with a courtroom like examination.  The bill will now go to the full committee for Consideration and if passed there, on to the House of Representatives for debate and vote.

Transit Advocate and Attorney, William Hamilton will be on OHM Radio in Charleston at 4 pm on Wednesday, March 27 talking about yesterdays hearing and how the struggle moves forward towards the full house, Senate and Governor’s office.

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he bill requires the State Department of Transportation to adopt a “Complete Streets” policy to support planning for sidewalks, transit stops and bicycle lanes so that safe multimodal use of our roadways will be possible where appropriate. SC Currently has one of the highest rates of injury for pedestrians (including people walking to bus stops) and cyclists in the US. Charleston County has a pedestrian and cyclist injury rate three times that of any other country in the state. This makes it a struggle for transit riders to reach bus stops, making our transit system less effective.

You can view hearing testimony by Milicent Middleton (Johns island)  and Janet Dieckmann (Sangaree, Berkeley County) online.

The fight for better transit and safer ways to reach transit stops will continue Saturday, March 30 from 11 am to 4 pm in the BI-LO parking lot at 3575 Maybank Highway on Johns Island, SC when Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit holds the Sea Island Transit Funfest. This free event will over family activities including a map participants can mark to show government officials where bus stops should be located and an activity to make “Bus Stop Bus” flags to flag down John’s Island’s unreliable Tri County Link Bus Service. Tri Coounty LInk  lacks fixed stop and bus stop signs in most locations. Participants will also be able to send messages to Rep. Robert L.  Brown, a member of the Committee that considered the bill on Tuesday and who represents Johns Island, but who was not present for the hearing and has not yet cosponsored the bill. Button Making, a cookout, DJ and banner painting will be some of the other activities at the Transit Funfest.

John’s Island’s roads are horrific for pedestrians, transit riders and cyclists. Long, dark stretches of road without sidewalks or bike lanes have taken many lives and the home-made memorials of wooden crosses and white painted “ghost bikes” line roads for miles, giving  the impression of passing through a cemetery when they are traveled. Tri County Link’s bus lines lack stops or safe ways to reach the few roads the buses are supposed to run on.

For more information on Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit’s activities contact Executive Director William Hamilton at (843) 870-5299 or see www.bfltransit.com.

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