Third-bridge crossing an idea that just won’t die
By Lolita Huckaby
BEAUFORT
Beaufort County Councilwoman Alice Howard is right: almost any governmental public meeting you attend these days, the subject of traffic control comes up.
Howard reminded her colleagues of that over-riding topic of interest last week when the Beaufort County Northern Regional Plan Implementation Committee came back together after almost a year of inactivity.
This community, like most growing areas, has a lot of planning meetings. It’s pretty obvious there’s a lot of “planning” to do although sometimes it seems like the governmental regulatory/ groups are playing catch-up to the developers who keep coming forth with more and more building plans.
This particular planning group is held once a month for representatives of northern Beaufort County, Port Royal and Beaufort to sit down and get updates on issues of concern.
And while last week’s meeting was basically brain-storming, the issue of traffic – and what to do about it – was on the table. Of specific interest, the decades-old topic about a third bridge crossing to Lady’s Island raised its aging head.
Deputy County Administrator for engineering Jared Fralix, a man with many projects already on his desk, threw the “ball,” as they were calling it, out for discussion, reminding almost all those sitting at the table that the official Lady’s Island Development Plan in 2007 calls for a third bridge project to be “explored and evaluated.”
The plan (which you can read for yourself at https://bit.ly/40E3ieX if you’re so inclined) outlines the latest plan on record, a crossing north of the MCAS Beaufort, bridging the Beaufort River near Brickyard Landing and directing traffic down Sams Point Road, had an estimated cost of $216 million – in 2018 dollars at 2018 prices.
The document also nicely condenses the pros and cons of the proposal, of which there are a number, basically why the Third Bridge Proposal has remained on the proverbial back burner.
But Fralix reminded those community leaders at the table last week of the inevitable – the 60-year-old Woods Memorial swing bridge which was recently named to the National Register of Historic Places – isn’t going to last forever and the cost of maintaining that state-owned facility is going to get higher and higher.
The third, and who knows – maybe the most important – is how such a traffic connector would change Lady’s Island and the neighboring sea islands, encouraging even more development.
After at least 40 years of discussions, those are still hard but realistic decisions. A lot of people will rely on hindsight and say “well, we should have done this” or “so-and-so stopped that from happening.”
But it raises the question, where does that leave the community, those that live on the islands and those that drive over there on a regular basis to work or go to school?
This commentary offers no hope that there’s any immediate solution to these traffic issues. It’s more an effort to provide some comfort that community leaders, and planners like Fralix, are looking for solutions.
In the case of the Third Bridge Proposal, there’s a plan on the books, the county is looking at future referendums to raise more money for road improvements, maybe it is time to put that question on the ballot?
Lolita Huckaby Watson is a community volunteer and newspaper columnist. In her former role as a reporter with The Beaufort Gazette, The Savannah Morning News, Bluffton Today and Beaufort Today, she prided herself in trying to stay neutral and unbiased. As a columnist, these are her opinions. Her goal is to be factual but opinionated, based on her own observations. Feel free to contact her at bftbay@gmail.com.
