Traffic and Transportation Committee

COMMITTEE ON TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORTATION January 24, 2017 A meeting of the Committee on Traffic and Transportation was held this date beginning at 4:02 p.m., at Charles Towne Landing, 1500 Old Towne Road. Notice of this meeting was sent to all local news media. PRESENT Councilmember Seekings, Chair; Councilmembers Moody, Wagner, and Wilson, and Mayor Tecklenburg Staff: Robert Somerville, Interim Director of Traffic and Transportation and Bethany Whitaker, Council Secretary The meeting was opened with an invocation provided by Councilmember Moody. APPROVAL OF MINUTES The minutes of the September 27, 2016 Committee on Traffic and Transportation meeting were deferred on the agenda. On the motion of Councilmember Wagner, seconded by Councilmember Moody, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the minutes of the January 10, 2017 meeting. PUBLIC HEARING An ordinance to amend the Code of the City of Charleston, South Carolina, Chapter 19, Section 19- 277(9) to extend the boundaries of the Eastside Neighborhood Residential Parking Permit Boundary to include additional portions of Sheppard, Line, Columbus, Woolfe, Reid, Amherst, Chapel, and South Streets within the Eastside Neighborhood Designated Residential Parking Permit District. Chairman Seekings stated that he didn’t see anyone from the public present and asked Mr. Somerville to open the public hearing. Mr. Somerville said they were having a public hearing on the extension of the East Side Residential Parking District. He had worked with Ms. Gamble who was the current neighborhood president on expanding the district. At that time they had received a petition from residents on Amherst Street, Nassau Street, and Woolfe Street. They wished to have their area signed as a 2 hour residential parking district. Councilmember Moody said he realized there were new things in the packet and Mr. Somerville said they were in there at the last meeting. Councilmember Moody said it was not in the agenda item they were sent and asked what the other items were. Mr. Somerville said he wanted to put the existing boundaries in their folders which were the green lines and the red lines outlined the new boundaries. Mayor Tecklenburg asked why the papers were different and Councilmember Moody said that one was the original and the other was the new boundaries. Mayor Tecklenburg asked if the leg that came off the boundary was intended. Mr. Somerville said that the area to the east of the leg was Ragsborough Home extension. They were a separate condo unit development. He had talked to Sue Griffin and she had said that they had discussions about forming a residential parking district. Chairman Seekings stated that they were extending the boundaries of the district and approving certain streets to be signed, but not all of the streets would be signed right away because they didn’t have the petitions. Mr. Somerville said that was correct. Chairman Seekings said that they had petitions for Amherst, Nassau and Woolfe Streets. The others would come along if they chose to. Councilmember Moody said that the Dixon Hughes office building was on the corner of Chapel and East Bay Streets. He knew that a lot of the employees used to park in that area, so this would negate that. He was wondering if there were any other businesses there and if they had been contacted or involved to know what was getting ready to happen to their parking. Mr. Somerville said that the areas they were going to sign did not have businesses that would be impacted. They hadn’t contacted anybody yet, but in the future if it extended, they would contact the businesses. Councilmember Moody said that the business was sitting on the corner and he would park on the streets, and that he was wondering if they knew what was about to happen to them. Chairman Seekings said that nothing was about to happen to them because there was a separate parking district there now. Chapel, Charlotte, and Alexander Streets were in a different parking district. This was just a new district. Mr. Somerville said that this area was not going to be signed right now for two hours. If they got to that point, they would contact them. Councilmember Moody said it occurred to him that there were a lot of people that would be affected. Chairman Seekings said that he was in favor of this to allow the neighborhoods to have some control of their parking. When someone was on the edge of a commercial district, they would let them know. On the motion of Councilmember Moody, seconded by Councilmember Wagner, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the boundary extensions of the Eastside Neighborhood Residential Parking Permit Boundary to include additional portions of Sheppard, Line, Columbus, Woolfe, Reid, Amherst, Chapel, and South Streets within the Eastside Neighborhood Designated Residential Parking Permit District. DISCUSSION Councilmember Wilson stated that this was an opinion item. The e-mails had been flying around James Island because Councilmember Qualey had put in a request for $25,000,000 to replace the bridge over the James Island Creek. She thought it was another attempt to divvy up any 526 money that may or may not come to Charleston. He had people sign on with support. She said they had just gone through this with the Harborview Road project. The bridge was projected to have 25 years. They claimed it was a bottleneck and it was not a bottle neck. The bottle neck was because of the turn at Northshore Road. That problem would be rectified when Harborview Road was completed and opened up. The traffic back up would be alleviated. She saw no use in putting a 4 lane bridge there when on either side of the bridge there were only 2 lanes. She wanted to put that out there and let them know that he was making noise about that. Chairman Seekings asked what the status of that project was. Councilmember Wilson said it was 82% completed, but had a multitude of delays. It should have been done already and was being projected to be done in March. She did not understand why they hadn’t opened a portion of it since it was completed at Northshore Road. Chairman Seekings said that they had worked hard at the end of last year on the parking decal portion of the parking ordinance. He, Mr. Somerville, and Ms. Borden, were meeting the next day with Mr. Ballard to go over the final portions of that. He was hoping they could put it to bed at the next meeting. Councilmember Moody suggested that they should schedule more than a 15 minute meeting to spend some time looking at it. Chairman Seekings said he agreed and that they would then bring it to Council for the public hearing. Councilmember Wilson said that Charleston Place and St. Mary’s were still having issues with the parking in the garage. Mayor Tecklenburg said he had seen Mr. Harmon and he hadn’t said anything. This would be a question for Ms. Carducci. Mayor Tecklenburg said that he had written a letter to the Coastguard 4 months prior and had received a response. His request was to expand the hours that were considered peak travel times for the opening of the Wappoo Bridge, and to refrain from opening the bridge just for the changing of the Guard. He had received complaints from a number of citizens on James Island about that matter, and he couldn’t believe that. They were putting the bridge up, so they could be a little safer getting to and from the station. They had quit doing that. The Coast Guard agreed to make 6-9:30 a.m. and 3:30-7 p.m. peak travel times. It would only open on the hour for recreational vehicles. Commercial vessels would get through anytime, because they had a priority over cars. That was a great first step, but it took an act of Congress to put the hours into effect, but they had the approval from the DOT, the City, and the local Coast Guard. It would go to Washington, D.C. and whenever it went through that process, they would put it in the CFR and it would become the official expanded times. That should mean lesser closing during peak travel times. The estimated process time was 1-2 years. Having no further business, the meeting adjourned at 4:18 p.m. Bethany Whitaker Council Secretary