Monday, May 7, Five days to #ConChaCo
Note- This is the
first of five public statements to be issued by Best Friends of Public Transit
to prepare the community for Saturday’s ConChaCo event, a Charleston City Wide Transit
Focused Festival along the #20 Upper King / Meeting Bus line linking the Farmer’s
Market, Awakening Motion, The Greek Festival, the ConChaCo Pub Crawl &
Restaurant Hop and the Night Market. Full
information can be found in this previous media release. The Statements
will be titled by our organization’s Motto: Together We Go Forward &
ConChaCo and will announce a 6 pm event each day to help create better transit
in the Lowcountry.
Transit implies togetherness. People share waits at stops, space
on sometimes crowded buses and journeys. While the Lowcountry’s Culture of
racism and class division have created obstacles for transit, our losing
struggle against car and sprawl development created congestion is going to force
us to come together.
Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit has talked to over a
thousand people in Lincolnville, Summerville and Ladson in the past month to
prepare for tonight’s Town Hall in Summerville with State Representative Marvin
Pendarvis. We’ve attended a Town Council meeting in Lincolnville and a
community festival to address the needs of struggling people in Sangaree. One
hundred years ago a trip on the train to Summerville took less than an hour and
Ladson and Lincolnville had busy train stations and multiple train trips a day
to Charleston. Last week it took an hour on the CARTA #3 Bus to reach the
isolated Dorchester Village Shopping Center and a $32 Uber Ride to get to a meeting
of the Dorchester Planning Department. About five citizens came to that
planning meeting.
The long planned Bus Rapid Transit line connecting
Summerville and Charleston has wide support among all the citizens we talked to
in Ladson, Lincolnville and Summerville, but there is pessimism about the will
of elected leaders to get it done. As the pathetic attendance at the planning
meeting shows, governing ourselves democratically is hard in a landscape where
it takes a 32 dollar Uber Ride to get from the nearest bus stop to your
government. Few will make the trip.
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| Bus Stop Shelter at Chicora Community Garden, N. Chs. |
We also attended a Town Council meeting in Lincolnville, a
community founded by freed slaves 150 years ago with a proud transportation tradition
which once included it’s own trolley line. The Mayor wears a loaded pistol because
the town struggles with people who choose to make their own opportunities outside
the law, in part because they lack transportation options. However Lincolnville
is ready to work for better transit, planning a major event with us to raise
awareness for the fall.
In Ladson and Sangaree the elderly and disabled find a
comfortable retirement slipping away from them. Many older citizens can no
longer drive in the fierce, angry traffic.
We saw wonderful businesses struggling for customers because just
getting on and off the road safely is a struggle. There is a room full of slides and indoor
playground equipment on Highway 78 at the Mellow and Play Café and a wonderful café
which provides needed social and play space for that disconnected
community. Everyone would be better off
if the could reach Mellow and Play Café without fighting traffic full of angry
people who are spending far too much of their lives trapped in traffic.
How do we come Together? What do we have to do to build the
transit system and tame the traffic monster strangling our lives? We do it the old fashioned way. Our organization
has already handed out 25 hundred leaflets in the Summerville, Ladson and Lincolnville
areas about tonight’s meeting. We’ve recruit a trusted leader to run the
meeting. We have a wonderful community center at the edge of Azalea park. When 6 pm comes, we’re doing to stand up like
the man in the Norman Rockwell painting, Freedom of Speech and we’re going to
talk to each other. Neighbors are going to hear neighbors.
 |
| CARTA Board Member Warwick Jones talking with transit riders |
It’s the same way our ancestors started the effort to build
the Best Friend of Charleston in 1927 when inadequate river navigation
threatened the Lowcountry’s economy. In three years neighbors talking to neighbors
led to the construction of the longest railway in the Western Hemisphere and
you could get from Charleston to Summerville fast than you’ll probably be able
to do this evening. Meeting like this (not the drop your card in the suggestion
box variety, but the kind where the public hears each other) build the
Transcontinental Railroad, the Panama Canal and put Neal Armstrong and Buzz
Aldrin on the moon. We talk. We listen. We build. We move. It’s what Americans
do. We’re a nation which has come Together on the move.
You can come together with us this evening in Summerville.
State Representative Marvin Pendarvis (SC 113) invites you
to bring your thoughts about bringing better public transit to the communities
of Summerville, Ladson & Lincolnville on Monday, May 7. Participatory
activities for children and adults and informal discussion with community
leaders will be from 6 to 7 pm. A formal presentation and Town Hall meeting
about public transit will follow with from 7 to 8:30 pm. The Town Hall will be
held at the Cuthbert Community Center, 105 W 5th South Street Azalea Park,
Summerville, South Carolina. The event is free and open to the public.
END END END
For more information contact William Hamilton at wjhamilton29464@gmail.com or call
(843) 870-5299.
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