By Bill Rauch
The first step of what is sure to be a long and controversial series of showdowns that will finally lead to the replacement of Beaufort’s Woods Memorial Bridge will be taken next week when Rep. Shannon Erickson introduces into the South Carolina House of Representatives a resolution commemorating the iconic bridge’s 60th Anniversary.
Why is that significant?
Because, according to the South Carolina Department of Transportation’s (SCDOT’s) spokesman Pete Poore, “Sixty is when we begin to consider bridges obsolete.”
Rep. Erickson’s Resolution will have the effect of drawing attention to the bridge’s coming obsolescence and that, as County Council vice chairman Paul Sommerville says, “The Woods Bridge is a problem that’s awaiting a solution.”
What exactly is the problem?
The landmark bridge’s replacement is controversial already — and has been for years — because the SCDOT’s policy is to do away with swing bridges and drawbridges in favor of fixed span bridges. But in the case of the Beaufort River crossing of US 21 Business a fixed span bridge would begin its elevation on the Port Royal Island side at about The Carteret Street United Methodist Church and by the time it reaches Bay Street three blocks down it would be about 50 feet in the air, according to a late 1990’s Army Corps of Engineers Study of the problem.
It gets worse.
Then, right about Bay Street, according to the study, the approach to the bridge turns to the right and, as it continues to climb, passes over the present Waterfront Park playground and in front of a significant portion of the Waterfront Park before turning left to cross the Intracoastal Waterway at 65’ of elevation before making its descent onto Lady’s island, finally reaching grade again around the Lady’s island boat landing.
Imagining this man-made mountain downtown, the many defenders of Beaufort’s historic district — which is effectively the whole town’s power structure — have and will continue to argue to the death that the shadow a new fixed span bridge would cast across the heart of Beaufort’s lifeblood historic district would be deleterious, perhaps even fatal, to the district’s future.
Thus the stalemate.
So what is the solution?
Since no one at the SCDOT will speak on the record, here’s my interpretation.
Florida’s experience is that drawbridges have been found to be more reliable than swing span bridges, and there are many drawbridges in Florida that motorists use at all times of the day and night to cross the Intracoastal Waterway.
Our action plan should in my view be to muster the political power in Columbia to pass local legislation that would have the effect of compelling SCDOT in this special circumstance to make an exception to their no drawbridge policy, and to build a new drawbridge on roughly the alignment of the old 1927 swing span bridge. Furthermore, as to design, we should honor the Woods Bridge by reproducing as closely as possible it’s gentle, classic lines and elevations.
My friend Frank Glover, with whom I served for a dozen or so years on the Beaufort City Council and who was the SCDOT’s (then Highway Department’s) District Engineer for Beaufort for many years before that, estimates it will take 10-plus years to fund, permit and build a new bridge once its plans are agreed upon. So there’s not a lot of time to spare here.
The new turn lanes and traffic management improvements on Lady’s island that will begin to be constructed next week are helpful, but they are like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic if the Woods Bridge goes down before an appropriate successor is in place.
Bill Rauch was the mayor of Beaufort from 1999-2008. Email Bill at TheRauchReport@gmail.com.
