Residents Hear I-526 Expressway Extension Alternatives

Some say encroaching development eventually will force out lifelong residents of Johns and Wadmalaw islands. Bill Saunders thinks the proposed extension of Interstate 526 will drive them out 30 years sooner.

"It's going to hurt all of us from those islands," Saunders said. "We're just asking the community to support us."

Saunders is co-founder of Concerned Citizens of the Sea Islands, a group that organized a series of workshops with the Coastal Conservation League last week to look for alternatives to the Mark Clark Expressway extension. A team of traffic engineers used residents' comments to create different solutions to area traffic problems, which it presented to a crowd of about 120 last Thursday.

Kristen Hankla The Post and Courier

Urban designer Addie Weber

works to put residents' ideas

onto paper last Thursday before

a public presentation of

alternatives to the Mark Clark Expressway extension.

The presentation and workshops fueled the debate for the $420 million project that the State Infrastructure Bank Board already has agreed to fund. The extension would run from Savannah Highway in West Ashley, through Johns Island with an interchange at Maybank Highway and to the James Island connector where it currently spills onto Folly Road.

Plans for the road were created in the early 1970s and updated in 1985. The extension would include four lanes plus a 48-foot median for future expansion.

According to Megan Desrosiers of the Coastal Conservation League, the proposed extension is a result of the same transportation planning mentality that created the less-than-ideal Savannah Highway, Maybank Highway and Folly Road.

"We need a new concept for transportation planning. ... Forward-thinking cities are taking down freeways," she said.

Jane Lareau, also of the league, said the Mark Clark extension simply would move congestion from West Ashley's roadways to certain ones on Johns Island.

"The Mark Clark is going to be a disaster for Johns Island," she said, citing a Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments study that found the expressway would increase the island's population 20 percent to 40 percent.

"I know that there are road solutions that will fix the congestion problems west of the Ashley better than the Mark Clark," she said.

The solutions presented by Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, the transportation engineering company hired by the league and the citizens group, included dispersing traffic onto a network of smaller roads and creating town centers or "nodes" that would bring businesses and services closer to residents.

The presentation was music to Seabrook Island resident Banner Hughes' ears. "I thought it was a done deal," she said of the expressway extension. "I would be delighted if something like this could be done instead."

Others, such as Peggy Bohne of West Ashley, didn't think viable solutions were presented. "If they live on Bees Ferry and all work downtown, connectivity (of smaller roads) isn't going to do any good as far as I am concerned."

Bohne said the expressway extension would ease traffic on Savannah Highway and St. Andrews Boulevard, which she lives near. "Our quality of life is being affected drastically by all the traffic," she said, citing the noise and pollution created by cars "just sitting on (S.C. Highway) 61." Opponents say the minimal improvements to traffic congestion in West Ashley are not worth the dismal effects the expressway would have on Johns Island. A study by the Council of Governments estimates that in the year 2030 about 2,000 fewer cars would use Savannah Highway each day if the Mark Clark extension were in place.

Supporters say the freeway is the best solution for crowded roads they think will only get busier.

"We shouldn't ignore the fact that we need more roads," said Robert Getsinger of James Island. "We've got the money coming for it; let's get it done."

Richard Fowler, also of James Island, said the extension would help him get to Citadel Mall faster. And even if it eventually becomes congested, as the Council of Governments traffic study suggests, the expressway extension, he said, would be a more scenic place to get stuck than Savannah Highway.