Road issues to require teamwork

Charleston, county focus on Johns Is.

The train is on the track. Now which direction will it go?

The city of Charleston and Charleston County have opposite visions for the future of Johns Island. But now the key decision makers are getting in sync, saying they'll work together to solve traffic woes on the rural sea island.

"We need to get this right," County Councilman Curtis Bostic said Thursday during council's Planning and Public Works Committee meeting. "This is a major project and major dollars."

Consultants with Roadwise, the county's half-cent sales tax traffic group, showed council members conceptual plans for widening Maybank Highway. Roadwise is suggesting making the highway five lanes with a landscaped median, and a two-way left turn lane would be built on busy stretches.

But Charleston Mayor Joe Riley is pushing the city's plan for a village-like grid system that would diffuse traffic through networks of smaller roads, instead of having a single, widened main road. "Our concept is to require connections so that you don't always have to go out on the main road, Maybank, to tend to things on Johns Island," he said.

County Council directed the planning and transportation staff to collaborate with their city counterparts and find ways to meld the different development visions.

"We can't figure out whether we need a four-lane or a five-lane road unless we know what we want businesses and property along Maybank Highway to look like 20 years from now," Councilwoman Colleen Condon said. "Those two have to be made side by side, or else we have a great land-use plan that's going to be destroyed by the idea of putting asphalt down."

The county and city staffs are to report to council in two weeks. But several lingering questions will likely take longer to answer, particularly about paying for turnabouts from original plans.

First, the county might have to seek voter approval, because voters already approved the widening project as part of a 2004 bond referendum about spending half-cent money.

Secondly, county officials say it's unclear whether the CHATS committee of the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments would have to sign off on any new plans. About $15 million in federal money for the project is filtered by the state and then distributed through the local transportation committee. There are specified guidelines for how that money can be used.

One requirement for federal dollars says a traffic study must be completed. It took the county about 90 days to do its traffic study, for which Roadwise consultants considered five alternatives. The city worked with a renowned traffic engineer on a comprehensive growth plan but has not had an actual traffic study done for its proposed grid system.

Christopher Morgan, city planning director, told County Council members Thursday that they plan to have a detailed analysis done on how roads would connect in a grid. "We're very confident this could work for Johns Island," he said.

The Maybank Highway widening project has been in the works for the past six years. Riley said the city changed course after it worked with the public and found a better solution.

Councilman Dickie Schweers said he enjoys driving on Johns Island and thinks the city's plan could help preserve the island's character.

Councilman Paul Thurmond said the grid system might work if a cross-island parkway is built.

Bostic said he would like to know more about right-of-way acquisition and costs of maintaining roads for both the city's and county's plans.

Condon said she received nearly 300 e-mails after Sunday's Post and Courier story about plans to widen Maybank Highway. Most were in favor of developing a grid pattern, she said.

Thursday, concerned residents, conservationists and transportation activists flooded the fairly small committee room to see what the council would decide about Johns Island's fate.

Tom Bradford, director of Charleston Moves, a transportation advocacy group, asked the council to approve pedestrian-friendly transportation options that encourage cycling and walking possibilities and take cars off the roads.

Hamilton Davis of the Coastal Conservation League said it makes sense for the city and county staffs to collaborate and that he is "hopeful that the conclusion they come to and the recommendations they make will reflect the city's plan."

Reach Tenisha Waldo at twaldo@postandcourier.com or 937-5744.