Traffic showdown pits safety vs. easy commute

Melissa Haneline
The Post and Courier

More than 133,000 vehicles pour onto the peninsula every day, causing traffic clogs such as this one at Wentworth and Meeting streets.

The Post and Courier

The population of the Charleston peninsula is about half what it was in the 1950s, but there are more cars and trucks on the streets than ever.

On a typical day, more than 133,000 vehicles cross the Ashley and Cooper rivers and pour down the Neck Area into the peninsula. Some are just passing through, but most are heading to the jobs and schools concentrated downtown.

"In a way it's good, because it shows we're an employment center," said city Department of Transportation Director Hernan Pena.

But one effect of the increasing traffic has been a growing conflict between downtown residents' desire for safe neighborhood streets and the need of workers and visitors to move around the city quickly.

In 1997, the Harleston Village neighborhood association asked the city to put four-way stop signs at 15 intersections in the area between Broad, Calhoun and King streets and to reduce the speed limit to 20 mph.

In the decade that followed, the amount of traffic coming onto the peninsula increased by 18 percent, adding nearly 21,000 cars and trucks, in each direction, every day.

The city hasn't approved every request for stop signs, speed limits and speed humps, but today, all but a few downtown streets have a 25 mph limit, and Charleston has converted several streets to two-way traffic in an effort to slow cars down.

"We have streets that were built before the automobile," Pena said. "We have people who live there and work there and recreate there, and we have to provide for them too."

Of all the methods used to calm traffic, the most controversial has been the decision to take some main thoroughfares that were converted to one-way traffic in the 1960s, to speed traffic, and change them back to two-way streets in an intentional effort to slow traffic down.

Several neighborhoods have demanded the two-way conversions, often after extensive debate. Those who disagree with the concept say it's made things worse.

"Traffic doesn't move in and out of the city as easily as it used to," said John Benton, a resident of Laurens Street. "If you're going to make those streets two-way, then you have to make adjustments somewhere else, and the city hasn't done that."

Upper King Street was changed to two-way traffic in 1994. A portion of Wentworth and Beaufain streets followed in 2004.

A section of Rutledge Avenue went two-way in April, followed by part of Ashley Avenue in May. Spring and Cannon streets are next.

Traffic planners say that people are more likely to drive cautiously and obey speed limits when faced with oncoming traffic.

"A lot of people are seeing that we converted those, and are asking about their streets," Pena said. "The city has to feel satisfied that it will not only benefit the residents, but work reasonably well in moving the traffic."

Carol Oropallo lives on a section of Ashley Avenue that is still one-way, and she wishes the city would change it to two-way traffic. She said people speed, accidents are frequent, and her car is in the shop right now after being hit once again while parked along the street.

"After they hit that last light at Spring Street, they just go," she said. "It's like a little drag strip."

"I'd love to have a more tranquil neighborhood, like the rest of the historic district."

Pena said the city also has been asked to consider making a section of Coming Street two-way. The conversions to two-way traffic often require the elimination of some parking spaces, and the addition of stop signs at some cross streets.

"There are opposing goals here," said Benton, who disagreed with the Wentworth/Beaufain conversions five years ago and still does. "The people who live on the streets want the traffic slowed, but the people trying to get across town find it more difficult."

Pena said the city is working to move traffic efficiently.

All the traffic lights in the city, on and off the peninsula, were re-timed and synchronized this year, he said. The changes included longer green lights for motorists on roads including the Crosstown Expressway, Savannah Highway and Calhoun and Meeting streets.

The results still are being studied, but Pena said he's confident that the timing changes will improve traffic flow and aid pedestrians who need to cross busy thoroughfares such as Calhoun Street.

At the west end of Calhoun, about 49,000 vehicles hit the state's two-way traffic counters on the James Island Connector every day, 10,000 more than a decade ago.

At rush hour, so many of those cars and trucks pour onto the west end of Calhoun Street that hospital workers have been issued orange safety flags and instructed to wave them when they attempt to cross the street.

On the other side of the peninsula, cars and trucks took an average of 78,100 trips across the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge each day last year, an increase of 15,000 from what the old bridges carried 1997.

Benton suggested that one way to get traffic across town quickly would be to remove all parking on Calhoun Street. Pena said he's received similar suggestions about Broad Street but that parking is crucial for businesses and residents, and most of the people who call him are upset about traffic moving too fast, not too slow.

Reach David Slade at 937-5552 or dslade@postandcourier.com.