Location for Mt. Pleasant Arts Center Should be Transit Oriented

 By William Hamilton

Executive Director, Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit- www.bfltransit.com
Resident- 32 Sowell St., Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464
Ph. (843) 870-5299 or wjhamilton29464@gmail.com

Presented to Mt. Pleasant Town Council on March 14, 2023. 

At the end of his remarks, William Hamilton offered to restore and donate his late wife Julia's beloved 1920 mahogany Ivers and Pond Piano to the new art center. Julia was a stalwart supporter of music East of the Cooper, founding and performing with I'Onissimo! for ten years and playing 1st violin in the Mt. Pleasant orchestra. Julia played the large parlor grand instrument for 50 years. 

The proposed East Cooper Plaza location for an Arts Center is far more useful to the community and will generate less traffic because it can be served by strong public transit connections to outer Mount Pleasant and the Old Charleston area and transit hub. A greenfield site on currently undeveloped land on the north side of town would be impossible to reach by transit in the evenings and would have far larger environmental impacts.

I am the Executive Director of Best Friends of Lowcoutry Transit and run our East Cooper Hungryneck Straphangers unit. I have been riding public transit to and from the locations mentioned in this memo since 1978. I am a resident of I’On and take the bus into Charleston several times a week. Our organization is considered one of the leading Transit advocacy groups in the Southeastern US and the Town/Transit Teamwork effort which achieved a 308% increase in transit ridership in Mt. Pleasant between 2007 and 2012 is still a subject of national study today. Mount Pleasant wrote the book on suburban transit ridership development.

On the Reliable #40 Bus Line

East Cooper Plaza is currently on the reliable Mt. Pleasant #4O CARTA Bus line with stops right in front of the Plaza on it’s West end and in front of Sesame Burger just to the north, where two restaurants provide a pleasant place to wait for the bus and perhaps contribute to local economic activity and town tax revenue by enjoying a drink or meal. These restaurants and businesses also provide rain shelter while waiting. Transit riders don’t have the concerns about DUIs that car drivers have. While you can’t ride visibly inebriated, the professional drivers of CARTA, many with million mile perfect safety records are our designated drivers. The BP station also has snacks and a lighted place to wait out of the rain near the outbound stop.

For trips inbound to Charleston, there is a CARTA bus stop with a bench in front of First Reliance Bank, pm the frontage road across from CVS.. This inbound stop is also near Wood and Grain, Second State Coffee and several other pleasant places to eat or find a snack while waiting. The bank drive through provides rain shelter at this location. While the inbound stop could be improved by a shelter and the necessary space is available, it’s a perfectly acceptable all weather stop now.

Since inbound transit rides to Charleston require crossing Johnnie Dodds Blvd. Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit would recommend improved cross walk striping. Pedestrian push buttons are already in place and functional. Access to and from all directions is already fully sidewalked. The East Cooper Plaza location is also within walkable distance of over 1500 residences.

Student and Youth Visitors

Image, Right, Children planning future transit system for the Lowcountry.

Since this facility will have many student and youth visitors, who cannot drive access to transit provides a major opportunity to reduce traffic congestion. Parents or those assisting transportation challenged adults often make four trips between their origin point and the location of activity. One to take the young person to their practice or other activity, another to return to home or work, another  to pick the child up and finally another to return child and parent home or elsewhere. For students without a parent or guardian driver, youth cultural and civic opportunities are often inaccessible. Transit access is also of great value to Senior Citizens and the Differently Abled. Everyone who reaches this center buys tickets, fills seats and gains value for us all.

While it is a bit of a walk. The Coleman Blvd. #41 bus also has stops at extreme walkable distance of this location on Coleman Blvd. and Pelzer and Houston Northcutt, near town hall.

Image, left- Bus Stop at Mount Pleasant Town Hall, which with it's partner across the street linked by a world class pedestrian crossing with center Island is without question the finest bus stop on the CARTA system. 

The East Cooper Plaza location is also the closest available place for an arts center which could draw patronage from visitors staying at the Ravenel Gateway Hotels, all of which have very short, reliable transit links between Hotels and the Plaza.  It is also an easy ride from the transit hub at the Visitor’s Center Parking Garage downtown in Old Charleston, where CARTA lines link to the entire region and planned Lowcountry Rapid Transit System. Free DASH buses there bring tourists from throughout the city to make connections. If plays and concerts at our arts center are to succeed, strong transit is needed to fill seats. It’s also critical to provide access to the elderly and disabled.

If the town wants to take on a very ambitious cultural effort, this East Cooper Plaza Location, Town Hall, the Farmer’s Market, the I’On Mount Pleasant Amphitheater and Waterfront Park could all be effectively linked by a combination of existing CARTA public transit and town provided shuttles similar to that operated for the Blessing of the Fleet. Mt. Pleasant could go big with the sort of locally grounded cultural festival the City of Charleston, which has lost most of it’s citizen performers can no longer provide. Piccolo Spoleto was once a feast of local talent. Mt. Pleasant could take over that tradition with our own talent and voices, while Old Charleston services tourists with whatever out of town talent it chooses to market.

I attended a wonderful, but quite chilly Christmas concert on the lawn of Town Hall last December. The holidays remain hard on my because my beloved wife Julia, who filled our holidays with music as the leader of the I’Onissimo! Chamber Music organization was an accomplished violinist. The silence of the three Christmases since her death always burdens my heart. Hearing the music we shared performed by a local group of musicians and singers I knew filled by eyes with tears and drained away, for a precious hour, some of the grief and loss which arises from the silence of her piano and violin when Christmas trees glow. I remain grateful for that hour. I was able to find a ride with friends when holiday weekend surge pricing for Uber would have made the trips to and from town hall cost over sixty dollars.

Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit is already preparing a major summer 2023 effort called Bus Pirates, Queen Renee and her ladies in Raiding to support and build ridership on this summer’s Beach Reach Shuttle. We would be happy to reinvigorate our historically successful teamwork effort with the town to supercharge a cultural center at East Cooper Plaza with transit enabled access. We have ten years of experience producing cultural events in the I’On Community and 20 years of experience working to build transit ridership in Mount Pleasant. We can do this cheaply and effectively. We eager to help.

We’ll see you on the Bus.

Together, We Go Forward

William Hamilton

Bus to the Beach 2021- Open the Ocean

Bus service to the Beach at the Isle of Palms is now running Weekends and Holidays to Labor Day.

In February 2021, the CARTA board approved establishing weekend bus service connecting the CARTA System (Rt. 40 & 42) with the front beach at the Isle of Palms. Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, acting with national level support, wants to be sure this important transit equity victory, gets transformed into an enduring transit service that is used and valued and becomes a milepost on our journey to real, regional, rapid transit. 

Beach Service began on Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend (May 29) and will run Saturday, Sunday, Memorial Day, July 4 until it ends on Labor Day. Plans are to run from Market Center Drive adjacent to Mount Pleasant Town Centre in Mt. Pleasant to the front beach district. 

Read the official CARTA announcement.

This beach shuttle will connect to a parking lot and the regular #40 Mount Pleasant and #42 CARTA bus lines. Lines connecting with the #40 bus in downtown Charleston include the #10 Rivers Ave., #11 Dorchester Road and #30 Savannah Highway, among others.

You will be able to plan your trips to and from the beach using the Transit App or Google Maps, however until the service is posted to the system you can get an idea of what your trip is like by planning a trip to the existing CARTA bus stop at Hungryneck Blvd. and Theater Drive, near Mount Pleasant Town Centre'. Just click on this link for a ride from CARTA Superstop in N. Charleston or this link for a Ride from Citadel Mall. The beach service won't appear on Google unless you set your planned trip time for a date and time when it is running. If you check on Friday to plan a trip for Saturday without setting Google for Saturday, the system will return no service available. The beach shuttle should connect to the bus lines that stop there at a time when an immediate transfer is available. Video tutorial on Google Transit, which works for all CARTA and LINK trips.

Upcoming Events- You can view the upcoming events in our effort on Facebook.

Seven years of effort was invested into winning restoration of transit to the Atlantic at Charleston. What is called for now aren't petitions, demonstrations and attending meetings, but "butts on the Bus." We must fill these buses. Fortunately it's summer and we're going to the beach, so it's going to be a lot of fun.  Unfortunately, it's not going to free. Contribute to our support online. 

Keep Us Moving Forward! You can contribute to the support of this effort online on Act Blue at https://secure.actblue.com/donate/best-friends-of-lowcountry-transit--inc--1?fbclid=IwAR2LGKxdmMUqJKvcGZGKYPlZKfC0qfcvvk5SyqC0M1FAzs3556LTDvSSEi0 

This effort is sponsored financially partially by the Amalgamated Transit Union and a number of local unions, including the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Project Update Time Line

July - New Island Stop location- CARTA and IOP have moved the bus stop East to the middle of the beach bsuiness district and closer to the county park, where showers and toilets are located. The map at the top of this post shows the new location. 

June 2- Guided Rides Announced

The first guided rides to help Open the Ocean for Kids, June 19 from Remount Road in N. Charleston and June 26 from Summerville are announced. See our upcoming events for a full listing.

June 1- Report from the Route our impression of the first weekend of operations with some pointers for riders. https://bfltransit.blogspot.com/2021/06/reach-beach-bus-gaining-traction-report.html

May 29- Reach the Beach Shuttle begins running. The shuttle connects reliably to the #40 Mt. Pleasant CARTRA bus and parking is still freely available at Mt. Pleasant Town Center. Online tracking of the bus has been spotty, but is improving. We made trial runs for our Open the Ocean for Kids effort with both kids and some volunteers from the assist the homeless effort downtown with good results and the big trips to the beach are now being planned with the first announced for June 19 starting at 9:30 am from Recycled Love Thrift Store on Remount Road. 

May 27- First Open the Ocean for Kids ride announced. We're planning our first Open the Ocean for Kids outing on Saturday. If you want to ride along, we'll be departing from CARTA Superstop on the #11 at 11:57 am, connecting at

Wolf & Meeting Street downtown at 12:30 and arriving at IOP at 1:40 pm. This group consists of people who have worked with our organization and their children and will serve to work out the bugs and learn how to make future trips work better. Of course anyone can ride along on the public bus. We would like to roll in banging full if we can. Here is the trip. https://goo.gl/maps/6Vr6iLqPCxTMNHTz5

May 22- Pink House put on a wonderful party for our bus to the beach effort. We met a lot of old friends and made some new ones.

May 21- Route now Fare Free. After our press release and some advocacy by our friends at the Town of Mt. Pleasant, our bus to the beach is now Fare Free.  IOP agreed to match the Town of Mt. Pleasant's 8 thousand dollar contribution. While the cost of the fare wasn't a major problem, we were concerned that people on board would discover they needed to pay again after trips from N. Charleston or West Ashely and not have change, meaning they would have to interrupt their trip to get change at Town Centre. 

May 19- Official CARTA announcement with rules for what can be taken on the bus.

May 17 & 18- BFLT Staff and volunteers began door to door outreach West of the Ashley. We've reached over 1200 households in areas known to have large concentrations of transit riders in the past four weeks as well as contacting over 10 thousand people at community events. 

May 12- Community Social Justice Partners invited to Pink House Event- Saturday, May 22, from 4 to 7 pm, Pink House and Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit will hold the “Sea Island Luau at the Pink House Playa” West of the Ashley to get the community ready to Open the Ocean when CARTA begins running bus service to the beach in Charleston for the first time in 7 years. Christian King, director of Pink House will be holding this event in the Oak Shaded back yard of Pink House West of the Ashely at 1551 Mulberry St, Charleston, SC 29407.

We’re inviting our community’s peace and justice partners to come table with ideas and activities so we can get to know each other again as we emerge from the Covid shut down. We’ll have food, music and children’s activities. All your organization needs to do is contact us to sign up and bring a table and some chairs. The yard is well shaded so pop up tents, while welcome, are optional.

Come share your plans and celebrate this victory or returning Transit to the Atlantic in our long struggle for social justice and equity in our region which we must continue together.  We have space for your art and music in this event if you like. The event in near the #30 Savannah Bus line. Get off at the stop near Pep Boys and walk back three blocks. Just call William Hamilton at (843) 870-5299 or email wjhamilton29464@gmail.com. Full information on the event can be found at https://www.facebook.com/events/3756005741160223?active_tab=about 

May 6 to 10- We reached over 2000 people in four days of intensive outreach throughout the region. ON Thursday we did outreach downtown focusing on the hospitality industry where guests are always looking for ways to reach the beach. Friday a team talked to people working at downtown businesses who often walk to work and don't have cars. On Saturday we had efforts operating on N. Charleston on Remount Road, in Summerville, West of the Ashley at Pink House and out at Folly Beach were we did some sidewalk leafleting. On Sunday we did outreach on the East Side of Charleston, South of Columbus. People are excited and positive. They want better transit to the beach and everywhere. 

Isle of Palms earlier this year

May 2- We did exploratory leafleting on the Isle of Palms which of course is mostly people who drive there now. We got a great reception. Parking at the City and County Park Lots ran out about 1:30 pm. Parking at the County Park is now $15 per day.  Other private lots are still $10. Parking at the City lot is now done with a smart phone application. We used our experience to plan future outreach efforts of this kind. We visted the opening of Coconut Joes new Pina Colada bar, a patio type space between Coconut Joes and the Hot Dog Stand. It was very nice. We also visited the wonderful supporters we have in the front beach business district. 

May 1- Started Latino Outreach Effort- We're working with Diane Salizar to update our exiting Latino/Spanish Language outreach materials. We rode the #23 bus together and planned out outreach effort which will include Latino activities at the May 22, Sea Island Luau at the Pink House Playa event. Also did outreach downtown where a lot of people without cars live, use transit and want to reach the beach later this month.

April 27- Transit Advocacy at Charleston County Council- We attended Charleston County Council with members of CAJM to advocate for better transit and affordable housing. We pointed out that lack of places to live and mobility were driving the region towards a loss of young, capable service workers critical to our medical and tourism sectors. It was a heavy evening, but at least we were able to let everyone present know about the bus to the beach. 

April 16- Downtown Outreach- We began trail outreach downtown targeting younger service workers, hotels and Apartment buildings. We got an incredibly positive response. A lot of people pay high rents to live downtown, near work and have shed their cars. They want to beach and they're ready to ride the bus, for them a short hop on the #4 and the shuttle out to the beach. What we learned will be used for a major downtown outreach effort in the near future.

April 25- Outreach in Mt. P. and N. Chas. Members of Best Friend's of Lowcountry Transit's Corps of Conductors leafleted over 1000 people at the Blessing of the Fleet in Mount Pleasant and visited 300 homes in the "Macon" section of N. Charleston with State Rep. Marvin Pendarvis. 

April 24- Dial's Pizza Begins Promoting Open the Ocean- Located at the Corner of Bogard and St. Phillip's Streets downtown, D'Allisandro's Pizza becomes our first community business partner to begin distribution of information about the Beach Bus Service to the community. We have an event planned for there on May 14.

April 21- Be Like Chloe! video goes online. Our meme about Jack slogging to the beach with a mountain of gear in his SUV and Chloe traveling light on the bus is now a video. View it on Facebook. 

April 21- Earth Day Effort- 300 Transit riders and 200 members of the public were leafleted with information on the new Beach service and the problems with the Rapid Transit plan. Work began   before dawn and covered several bus stops, parts of North Charleston and Downtown and the College of Charleston. Our target is to reach 30 thousand potential riders with the information about the beach service between now and July 17.

April 14- The first outreach effort set for April 25 in support of Open the Ocean has been set for Sunday, April 25 in N. Charleston, 4 to 6:30 pm and will be led by State Representative Marvin Pendarvis in the "Macon" and surrounding areas, operating from our popup tent at the Intersection of Spruill and Reynolds Ave. Volunteers are welcome. Full details on Facebook. This is part of the international Earth Day to May Day observance.

April 14- Windjammer Reopening Ocean Stage for National Acts

The popular IOP venue will be very active this summer bringing music and entertainment to the beach. Read the City Paper article. 

April 10, 2021- Events Updated
We have updates our events listings for the effort. As we work in the community, the events evolve and partners join to elaborate the activity. See the updated listings.

April 7- Key to the Sea presented to the public. The key to the sea was presented to the public at the Lincolnville Town Council meeting. This is the great, iron castle key which will be thrown into the ocean on July 17. The key is 13 inches long and rests in a custom made cherrywood case. After the original key is thrown into the sea, a second key will be placed in the box and it will be presented to the City of Isle of Palms as thanks for opening the ocean.

April 7, 2021- ATU Grant Funding for Open the Ocean Effort- The international Amalgamated Transit Union has made a grant to cover core elements of the Open the Ocean Effort. The union was instrumental in the efforts to help pass the referendum in 2016 sending funding and highly skilled organizers to build up our local effort. We have been partners with them and the Union local here in the fight for better transit since 2012. The Local Transit Operators Union is the oldest union in South Carolina, representing transit workers here since the days when electric streetcars drivers worked around horses on Charleston's streets. Learn more about the ATU

March 30- Fundraising begins. CARTA has failed to support bus service to the beach four times in the last twenty years. This time an empowered community is going to do the leg work for them. We need to raise 3,700 dollars to do this right. Choose the amount and part of the effort you want to support.. $300 has already been raised. You can contribute online trough Act Blue. 

March 29, 2021 - North Charleston, SC- SC State Representative Marvin Pendarvis (D-113, N. Charleston, Ladson, Lincolnville & Summerville) will serve as the honorary Chairman of Open the Ocean for Kids, the effort to bring local children to the beach on public transit this Summer being organized by Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit. Pendarvis will help bring the community together so children, can enjoy a safe, rewarding day at the shore. Read the detailed media release. 

March 27- Open the Ocean for Kids effort. We've published a detailed blog post on our plans to help kids reach the beach this summer on transit, including some local young people who have never seen the ocean. Read the detailed blog post. 

March 27- We've beginning to develop an element of the Open the Ocean effort focused on litter, recycling and a more sustainable beach experience for everyone. Cigarette buts can be collected and recycled along with other plastic trash and we're working out partnership to make sure the beach is clean and sustainable by reach the beach day Contact Claire Beazy with your ideas.

 

March 25- Demand Open Meeting Information- We've begun distributing a legal form written to comply with the SC Open Meetings Law which will allow anyone to demand formal notice of government meetings about public transit in the Lowcountry.  Read the details and download the printable PDF form at https://mailchi.mp/e276593cb227/chs-transit-riders-to-demand-notice-of-previously-secret-planning-meetings-1396845?e=[UNIQID]

March 25- We have received CARTA's response to our FOIA request regarding the Beach Shuttle, once it's scanned to PDF and placed online, we'll schedule a Zoom to discuss the contents. 

March 17- CARTA board failed to deliver schedule and route map at meeting, promises something soon. We are increasing pressure for real, detailed information on how the route connects to the #40 and #42 routes, and through them to the entire CARTA system. 

March 15, 2021- Awendaw Green will welcome us for a free night of music the Wednesday, May 26 before bus service to the beach begins. We may be able to run a bus from Summerville so everyone can be together (in a socially distanced way.) Event listing on Facebook.

March 13, 2021- Be Like Claire-
Download a copy of our new Poster / Meme 
Download the image for posting on Social Media

March 11, 2021- FOIA Request to CARTA & COG Freedom of Information Act Request to CARTA and the Council of Governments

Feb. 2021- The City of IOP has issued an official statement on the new service.  which includes a map of this proposed route. 

All events on the schedule can be found on our list of upcoming Transit Equity Events in the SC Lowcountry  You can also download a printable,  schedule for the effort at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XeHVwcgKBk6GENukMC6PXVcCC4GvmHNx/view?usp=sharing

The major effort will begin on May 4, Right to Ride Day, as part of our annual celebration of Mary Bower's 1867 successful effort to desegregate Charleston's horse drawn streetcars in 1867. Celebration events on River's Avenue on May 15 and at Pink House Neighborhood Resource Center on May 22 will follow. We'll Reach the Beach on Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend and mark the end of the campaign on July 17 when we Open the Ocean at the Isle of Palms. Events for the Hispanic/Latinx community and downtown Charleston are in development. 

Corps of Conductors doing Community Outreach

As part of this effort we'll be organizing rides to the beach for young people in our area who have never seen the ocean with preparatory swimming and safety lessons and appropriate community engagement. The first trips under this program will be held on Reach the Beach day.

We're also going to be handing out Masonite bus cutouts on May 16 for local artists to decorate in the tradition of Jamacian town buses. The painted and decorated cutouts will be returned at the Pink House event to be voted on by the public. The winning artist gets an all expense paid trip to IOP in the bus. 

Community outreach efforts began in Summerville on Feb. 22 at their black history event.  We plan to visit 3000 strategically identified households and contact another 10 thousand people at community events, farmer's markets and other celebrations in Summerville, North Charleston, Charleston, Daniel Island and Mt. Pleasant. Out reach will be conducted under the leadership of our professional Corps of Conductors, reinforced by volunteers and short term staff, including people recruited from our unemployed population and students. We'll be participating in local Juneteenth events in Summerville and other locations during the latter part of the effort. Will be present at Farmer's Markets, Concerts an Community Festivals as possible and appropriate while maintaining social distance. We have heavy duty gear, but it's hard to work with the public while wearing a biohazard hood.

Our Plan - This page will be our information hub for information on the new service and the tools you need to make it work for you. Google Maps, The Transit App and you smart phone are now your friends. However, we'll be doing a lot of proven, old fashion nose to nose (socially distanced) work. 

Children's Build a Lowcountry Transit System activity.

We're going to hold events, visit community festivals and do plane old door to door outreach in communities where we know need for beach access exists. Children who have never been to the beach will see the ocean for the first time. We'll deal with the scourge of bus pirates. In July, Rev. Thomas Dixon, leader of the July 18, 2015 march to the sea will lead us in riding out to the ocean, uniting the waters and then unlocking the ocean by hurling one fo the bronze keys to the ocean kept since 2015 into the sea. Then, of course, we'll have a party. All our upcoming events will be listed on our Facebook Page. 

Together We Go Forward! This effort will launch our next major campaign, to recover a plan for the Rapid Transit line which provides the reliable, high speed transit service from Summerville to downtown Charleston promised to voters before the 2016 Half Penny sales tax referendum, including restoration of service all the way to Downtown Summerville, dedicated transit lanes for the entire route within Charleston County and recovery of the historic rail line into Charleston's urban care for transit service. 

We'll update this page as plans evolve. If you have questions or want to offer input, contact William Hamilton, Executive Director of Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit at wjhamilton29464@gmail.com or call (843) 870-5299

Stand for Better Transit

Come Stand With Mary in Defiance of the Redneck Reactionaries in SC or
How a Square White Guy & Jesse are Trying to Build 
a Big Colorful Circle While People Get Sick

Sidewalk Pitch for #CHS #EARTHRISING and #HEROESMOVINGHEROES. Part of #EARTHDAY2MAYDAY

Jesse William talks to drivers waiting for the light to change.

Charleston, SC, USA, April 24, 2020- There were two demonstrations in South Carolina today. One was about the future, human dignity and saving  the planet in Charleston. The other, around the Statehouse, was a gaggle of violent ignorance, demanding that the workers of SC be fed into the grinder of the Coronavirus epidemic in the service of Donald Trump’s tiresome cortege of fear and hate.

Since stupidity and prejudice gets more publicity than it deserves, I thought I would tell you about today’s street corner banner pitch for better public transit that was part of #CHS #EARTHRISING and #HEROESMOVINGHEROES.  At the intersection of Meeting Street and the I26 onramp, Jesse Williams, activist and candidate for Charleston County Council and William Hamilton, Attorney and Executive director of Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit. This location was half a block from the former site of Charleston-s tent city of homeless people, cleared out four years ago.

At the North end of what was once Charleston’s now forgotten street car system that Mary fought to ride (her story later) and a few hundred feet from the planned route of the long promised, mostly paid for, over planned and as yet unconstructed bus rapid transit line, we made our stand while the rednecks surrounded the statehouse.

This banner faced the I26 on ramp

We pitched large banners declaring that it would be “Better on the BRT” an long delayed rapid  transit line between Summerville and Charleston we helped win voter approval of four years ago. Since then we’ve been fighting to force our elected leaders to spend the sales taxes we won for them on the transit system they promised to build. We have that promise in writing, incidentally.

The other banner, painted by the transit deprived people of the Johns and Wadamalaw Islands, declared “Sea Island Transit, There is Power in Togetherness,”  That one was so well received in it’s outdoor debut that Christian King of West Ashely started a project to create a large banner for their campaign to increase transit frequency there. We also have a twenty foot monster that demands bus service be returned to area beaches. That one is going up somewhere appropriate on Mayday.  We have tool boxes of bungee cords, rope, tent stakes and zip ties to put these up and keep them up in the wind.

Sticking It by the Side of the Road

Every pitch is different. This one’s curse was hidden concrete underground. Plastic tent stakes cannot be pounded into it with a rubber mallet. We finally found a soft spot. Jesse put up the chairs and cranked up our sound system and we were ready to go online.

Meta demo- This passerby  livestreams us livestreaming him

There are lots of people better at livestreaming that we are. Most of them aren’t putting up banners, greeting traffic and trying to manage a phone attached to the tripod with medical tape because the phone clip on the tripod broke. Tape is not an adequate substitute.  We finally got a shaky stream running shortly after 3 pm, as planned.  Then we had to finish staking up the other signs and banners. After that, when the tent stakes got pulled out in the wind due to soft ground, we put them up again.

It took us a while to get everything working but we get it all happening about 45 minutes into the stream. We call out our US Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, greet bus drivers, meet the public and wave at all the cars slowing down for a peek at the resistance.  You can see how we did on the record. The first 45 minutes are full of putting stuff up and the phone falling off the tripod. It isn’t exactly Avatar or Casablanca after that, but we hold it together for about 45 minutes until our failure to connect the booster battery to the phone catches up with us and we go dark.

https://www.facebook.com/BFLowcountryTransit/videos/2540528476220419/?t=2773

Jesse worked at it hard, pushing through the mask and helping  out. We got it done. We threatened non- one. People smiled. The young people walked by reveling in the spring with the soulless pleasure that their doctors prescribe for them. They seemed unworried, but they should be. We were that small, persistent   voice among the noise warning the redneck army the future has it supporters here, even in reddest, most backward South Carolina.

Not Staying Home, Managing the Social Distance

Folly Beach Hates sent the Police to take this banner down. 

We wore masks and gloves and got out of the house.  We’re going to pitch our big “Bring Buses Back to our Beaches” banner on Mayday, to remind the community of the fierce injustice of relying on the low wage service labor of thousands of transit riders to keep it’s tourism economy working while refusing, year after year, to offer those without a car a way to take their children to the beach. 

The angry men with guns in white pickups demanded the beaches be reopened to them. The governor gave that to them. The people who own the governments that control access to those beaches then closed them again, sort of. That was injustice, the white pickup army declared. The people on the beaches and the shite pickup guys still remember the time when there was a gate on folly road that black people were only allowed to pass if they had a job cleaning a white person’s beachhouse. They want that world back.  We’ve got twenty feet of hell no to put up on the workers day. We’ll be livestreaming then too.

We couldn’t stand by while the white pickup rednecks for the exurbs started their government takeover in SC. We gathered the weary, frightened survivors of our long, mostly losing struggle here on the phone and cajoled them into putting on their masks and picking up their flags. We begged, we promised and occasionally, we lied. Some came. More are coming. We’ve put together 12 days of struggle in the Lowcountry and Charleston and branded it #CHS #EARTHRISING, a part of the larger #EarthDay2MayDay celebration. Ours goes past Earthday because we needed to reach an anniversary in a city where the past from Francis Marion to the Civil War casts a long, dark shadow in our shared lives.

Sol Legare Island Transit Activists

May  4, is the 50^th. Anniversary of the Kent State shootings. It is also the 153^rd anniversary of the date Mary Bowers, a free woman of color, won the right to ride for all in Charleston. It was a month-long campaign that proves Mary would have consider us wimps. Mary’s approach to change was breaking things and setting them on fire.  Riots surged around police stations ended by shaky alliance confrontations with ex Confederate white police officers and very black Civil War Veteran US Army occupation forces. Mary wanted to ride the new horse drawn streetcars. They represented the future. So did her new freedom. The campaign began after a mass organizing meeting for the black reconstructionist Republican party in SC on Marion Square.  Mary decided to ride even though the “colored cars” were still allegedly on order. The conductor put her off. She said she would dismount, but there would be trouble.

Mary Does Not Do Zoom, She Summons Stones

Mary did not convene a zoom meeting to propound the value or her online petition and beg for donations for her new nonprofit on act blue. Mary did not beg for permits and pester Susan Dunn over at the ACLU. She went out and found a crowd. They found cobblestones. There was shortly a grave shortage or window glass. Charleston was then a city which had only two years before had so many windows blown out by the union bombardment that a yankee reporter, walking  through the weed wild streets South of Broad said the wagon ruts appeared to be paved in diamonds. After a month, General Scott commander of the Freedman’s Bureau suggested the street car company allow everyone to ride without discrimination as the new reconstruction act required. The board of directors held a meeting and concluded the implied idea that black federal troops would be riding streetcars with bayonets to increase the racial sensitivity of the conductors would be bad for business. On May 4^th the affirmed the right of all to ride.

Talking to a Member of the CARTA Board

It has taken me ten years of advocacy to get new bus shelters up in Charleston and the long promised rapid transit line that votes agreed to fund in 2016 is still only a plan after four years. We need to be shovel ready now.  It took Rosa Parks and the mighty Martin Luther King over a year to desegregate the buses of Montgomery Alabama. It took Mary only a month to liberate the Holy City’s streetcars. Of course Mary broke and burned things, lots of them apparently. So many, in fact, that the conservative newspaper refused to admit it had happened.

Evidently breaking things accelerates the rate of progress on social justice in Charleston. I suppose that’s why they don’t tell the tourists about Mary Bowers and why she doesn’t appear in our kid’s school books. I still don’t advise setting cities on fire to change them. However, it apparently works.  If the redneck army wants to escalate, Mary has warned them about where we can go and who wins we do.  Perhaps our elected officials should listen to people who don’t bring assault rifles loaded with thirty round clips of live ammo to their rallies. I and Jesse saw police officers all afternoon, every one of them glad to see us. Let’s keep it that way if we can.  We buried nine friends here after Dylan Roof shot up a prayer meeting at Mother Emanuel Church five years ago. Violence has no charm for us.

Mending the Circle, Claiming the Center

On May 4, her day and the day of the martyrs of Kent State, we’re planning a socially distanced demonstration in the Lowcountry, a great circular gathering. The circle has a radius of 98.6 feet and family groups will gather around the 300 foot circumference 12 feet apart. Speakers and musicians will take the center and the noise we make will move out through those gathered to the community and across the World Wide Web. We will restore the fractured circle of community and reclaim the center. The North axis will be dedicated to leadership and Government. The South axis point to family and community. The East will be dedicated to environmental justice. The west to social justice. To learn more, see the #Earthrising Rally event listing on Charleston’s new social network for Activists www.goodsharing.net

Even in the midst of this epidemic, we cannot surrender access to the roadside and public square. We can’t agree to stand on the street while our transit system serves the priorities of tourists instead of the hard working people who serve them. We can’t stand quietyly playing TV on Zoom while people are forced to return to work without even the flimsy protection of an 80 cent disposable mask. We are not their children, we are not disposalble pieces of meat and as Mary Bowers knew, we should not be slaves.

END END END

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

Charleston Toots a Salute to Transit Drivers Friday Afternoon

Charleston Toots a Salute to Transit Drivers Friday Afternoon, Apr 24

Due to expected high winds and storms, this event has been moved to Friday

Charleston, SC- Friday, April 24^th. From 3 to 5 pm (note new date due to weather) Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, is asking the Charleston, SC community to join us in saluting our Transit Operators, #herosmovingheros as they take our medical care workers home at the end of the work day on CARTA’s buses. We'll pitch our Power in Togetherness Banner (above) at the intersection of Meeting Street and the I26 onramp, a block north of Huger St.) where several major bus routes taking people to and from our Medical Complex pass. We’ll be positioned on the NW corner. The closest nearby address is just to the North at 623 Meeting St, Charleston, SC 29403-4222, United States.

Transit drivers across the US are moving people to work in our emergency response, healthcare facilities and volunteer organizations at the grass roots national response to Covid-19 evolves. Transit vehicles have been repurposed to deliver emergency food supplies and meals for children who are not in school. Operators have been exposed to the virus, many of them senior drivers with millions of miles driven behind them. Several have already died. Locally riders are asked to wear masks. CARTA drivers are now protected by a plastic curtain. Buses are being sanitized daily. Riders are being asked to limit travel to only essential trips.

You’ll be able to follow the effort and help us spread awareness online by connecting to the Facebook Live video stream well be sending out from the corner. You can obtain updates and get background on Charlestons now social network for activists at  #CHS #EARTHRISING discussion group on www.goodsharing.net  This effort will operate at our strict social distancing standard of 10 feet.

You’ll be able to follow the effort and help us spread awareness online by connecting to the Facebook Live video stream well be sending out from the corner. You can obtain updates and get background on Charleston’s new social network for activists at  #CHS #EARTHRISING discussion group on www.goodsharing.net    This event is part of #CHS #EARTHRISING, a twelve day series of events planned to reinvigorate the struggle for Social and Economic Justice in the South Carolina Lowcountry.

Have ideas, give us a call at (843) 870-5299 or Email wjhamilton29464@gmail.com

Let's Not Level Up on Sprawl- The Billion Dollar 526 Mistake

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.” Albert Einstein. 




The announced plans to destroy over 111 homes building a monster sized eight lane I526 from N. Charleston to West Ashley to solve the congestion caused by 50 years of unconsidered development and road building, is a billion dollar attempt to solve a problem by applying the methods and values which caused it. It is the logic a crack addict uses when he sells his wife's wedding ring at the pawn shop to solve what appears to him to be the most important problem in the world, getting more crack.  

Dana Beach, founder of the SC Coastal Conservation League, responded to our email about the plans to turn the western end of I526 through N. Charleston and West Ashley into an eight lane, sprawl inducing monster roadway with these thoughts.

The SC Dpt. of Transportation had announced a series of meetings, workshops and opened a temporary, local office to support planning for this terrifying project. Read the P&C Article listing these events from now to Nov. 19, 1.1 Billion Dollar Interstate plan. (There is no possible way they can build the roads planned for that amount of money, the actual sum has to be hundreds of millions of dollars higher. We'll be protesting our community's apparent incapacity to plan for the needs of people instead of cars on Nov. 29 (Black Friday) with a demonstration against building a suburban style gas station on land promised for a walkable, multiuse community on our new transit line with affordable housing: Spinx, Let Our People Go and Live on the Promised Line!

Dana Beach (image below) responded to our questions with these thoughts.

Dana Beach

Design your own transit system for the Lowcountry

Bus, Bike and Cars impacts on road use

“I looked this famous quote up on the Internet.  (Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.) Albert Einstein apparently did not say it. It was actually used in an even more appropriate setting, an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

This behavior is a verifiably delusional and addictive form of behavior.  It is a particularly expensive form of addiction, not to mention particularly destructive, as the impact of these neighborhoods illustrates.

There is no way we can build our region out of traffic congestion by adding more asphalt, especially in the form of these mega projects that benefit only road contractors.

It is telling that a regional bus rapid transit system will cost less than 1/5 the price of this single “intersection improvement.“

Image, Right, our plan your transit big map activity invites young people and students to paln a transit enabled Lowcountry. We're happy to bring it to your school, church or civic organisation.

Oh, and did I mention that the bus rapid transit system will actually serve people who live in these neighborhoods and may not be able to afford a car to sit in gridlock on the newly expanded interstate?

And did I mention that a bus rapid transit system will prevent the emission of hundreds of millions of pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thereby damping temperature increases?

Which brings me to another use of these billions of dollars: flooding. We have 13% of the total flood abatement funds needed just for the city of Charleston, not to mention Mount Pleasant and North Charleston.

Which brings me back to the bus rapid transit system. It is funded, unlike the rest of the both critical and wasteful initiatives. And yet, the county is dragging its feet and potentially dragging implementation out for a decade, despite the fact that cities is like Indianapolis have been able to get these projects up and running in 2 to 3 years.

Which brings us back to that point Albert Einstein did not make: doing the same thing over and over again, knowing we are doing the same thing over and over again, and blissfully hoping for and expecting a different outcome.

I can only hope (based in this case on some evidence) that with our newly elected city council, sanity will re-emerge."

You can also hear Beach's thoughts on the BRT and local politics in this Quentin's Closeups  Video, starting at 11:46

To Get Involved

If you would like to work with Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit on this issue please contact William J. Hamilton, III, (843) 870-5299 or email wjhamilton29464@gmail.com