Crowd is good for open house event at TCL; feedback gathered by Beaufort County
By Mike McCombs
The Island News
“I like parts of it, and there’s parts of it I don’t like.”
Beaufort County Council member Alice Howard seemed to sum up what quite a number of people in the room thought Thursday night, Sept. 14 at an open house to review the master plan for the Reimagine Ribaut Road project at Technical College of the Lowcountry.
The Reimagine Ribaut Road project looks to to enhance the 5.5 mile corridor from Boundary Street to the Russell Bell Bridge. Stakeholders Beaufort County, the City of Beaufort, the Town of Port Royal, and Stantec Consulting Services, Inc., are working together to create a master plan for improvements along the corridor.
The open house was another chance for the public – as well as the stakeholders – to see the latest project updates, share their thoughts and concerns, as well as give feedback and share their comments.
Without seeing the plans firsthand, it is difficult to illustrate just how big the changes are.
Roundabouts are introduced – at the intersection of Ribaut Road and Boundary Street; at Ribaut and Lady’s Island Drive; and nearly in front of the hospital where the entrances to TCL are; the four-lane Ribaut Road will be reduced to two lanes with a median between Boundary Street and TCL; and sidewalks and bike paths will extend the length of the project on both sides of the road among many features.
The roundabouts worry Beaufort Memorial Hospital President and CEO Russell Baxley. Or at least one in particular – one at Reynolds Street, the entrance to TCL, where Ribaut will change from two lanes to four or vice versa, depending on your direction of travel.
“From Beaufort Memorial’s standpoint, I think anything that causes a pinch point getting to and from the hospital concerns us,” Baxley told The Island News. “Anything that may impede first responders or emergency response vehicles getting to the hospital in the required time for us to serve the patients of the area, that’s a concern because we have limited windows for treatment times … stroke, chest pain, etc. We have concerns.”
Baxley said if the project was about making Ribaut Road safer, he felt the project was “admirable.” But he was less enthusiastic if the goal was simply to beautify without value.
Once again, he emphasized his focus was on the area around the hospital.
“When you have four lanes going to two lanes on a very busy road, could that cause impediments to getting to the hospital coming from downtown Beaufort or from toward the Air Station?” he said. “Those are our biggest concerns. We’ll continue to look and watch it, but the roundabout in front of the hospital, or close to it, is of concern to us.”
Jane Culley, who lives in Spanish Point, has to use Ribaut Road every time she leaves her house, she said. She was not impressed.
“Just looking at it, you have a narrowing of Ribaut Road in front of a fire station,” she said. “That’s just crazy. And I hate roundabouts. Somebody said this is a long way away. I don’t like it.”
The majority of the 5.5-mile corridor resides in Howard’s district. Her feeling are mixed.
“(I don’t like) the single lane near the hospital, the (roundabout) near the hospital, because people need to get to the hospital,” she said.
Howard likes a lot of the changes from the Mossy Oaks area through Port Royal, but is less enthusiastic about the reduction to two lanes from TCL to Boundary Street.
“I’ve got mixed feeling, but time will tell” she said.
Specifically, Howard was wishing for a pedestrian crosswalk of some sort near Southside Blvd.
“I see so many people cross (at Southside) that walk,” Howard said. “All the people that walk down Southside to get to the grocery store.”
The good thing for people like Baxley and Howard is nothing is set in stone, yet.
“At this point, this is a workshop for what we are proposing as the final design,” said Brittanee Bishop, Transportation Program Manager for Beaufort County. “However, when we go into design, details will again be tweaked.”
Bishop said even a major change to the plan, like the removal of a traffic circle, for example, is still a possibility.
“We will be working through any kinks though the actual design process. This is a planning process for what we would like to envision,” Bishop said. “This doesn’t mean this is exactly what’s going to occur. This is an overview of what we’d like to see in the corridor. We’ll go through those details, those bottlenecks, those placement of medians very strategically in the design process.”
Bishop said despite the complaints about certain parts of the plan, overall the feed back has been positive.
“A lot of very positive feedback,” she said. “People are interested to see the most congested area get improved, such as Lady’s Island Drive at Ribaut Road. People are very excited about our pedestrian accommodations.”
Count Town of Port Royal Mayor Joe DeVito as one of those happy with the design. Recent growth means traffic is up as much as 60% over just a couple years ago over the part of the plan that resides in Port Royal. He says Port Royal needs this.
“We’ve been pushing Ribaut Road needed change since the day I stepped in office,” he said. “It’s been something I have been fighting for and fighting for.”
DeVito said is the project happens in phases, he knows who he wants to go first.
“I’m fine with that as long as Port Royal is Phase 1 if the project gets phased in any way,” DeVito said. “I’m happy with a lot of what I see. I still think there’s more that can be done.”
Citizens and stakeholders still have the time and opportunity to complete a survey and provide comments on an interactive map at www.reimagineribautroad.com. The website is a good resource for anyone who wants to learn more about the project.
For questions or persons requiring additional assistance due to language barriers, contact the Engineering Department at 843-255-2700.
Mike McCombs is the Editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com.
