Traffic and Transportation Committee

TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORTATION April 10, 2018 A meeting of the Committee on Traffic and Transportation was held this date beginning at 2:33 p.m., at City Hall, 80 Broad Street, First Floor Conference Room. Notice of this meeting was sent to all local news media. PRESENT Councilmember Seekings, Chair; Councilmember Moody, Councilmember Wagner, Councilwoman Jackson, and Mayor Tecklenburg Staff: Keith Benjamin, Robert Somerville, and Bethany Whitaker, Council Secretary The meeting was opened with a moment of silence provided by Councilmember Wagner. APPROVAL OF MINUTES On the motion of Councilmember Moody, seconded by Councilmember Wagner, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the minutes of the February 26, 2018 meeting. Traffic Calming Speed Humps for Approval  Gadsden Street – Harleston Village Neighborhood  St. Margaret Street –Wagener Terrace Mr. Somerville said they received the request for St. Margaret Street the previous year and it met the requirements. They received the 85% petition requirement. It was a City street so they could proceed with the installation upon approval from the Committee. They requested approval. Councilmember Moody said that was a large number of vehicles down that street. He asked where they were going. Mr. Somerville said he assumed they were taking the easier route to avoid the light at Grove Street and Cleveland Street by cutting up to 10th Avenue and going straight down to Hampton Park. Mr. Somerville said that they received the request for Gadsden Street, signed by 82% of the residents. The issue with this one was that it had 254 vehicles recorded and the requirement was supposed to be 350. The average speed was 16 mph, and the requirement was 20 mph. This request came because of the Sergeant Jasper project. The residents were concerned that, with Barre Street being closed from Broad to Canal Street, it would be a main access aisle for trucks going in and out. They were asked to bring this at the request of Chairman Seekings. Councilmember Moody said he would hate to start setting a precedent. These were supposed to be traffic calming devices, and he wasn’t sure how much more could be calmed when it was at 16 mph. He would say to hold off on this one until they got some evidence. They were anticipating something that may not happen. He would said it didn’t meet the qualifications, and they had other streets that did need these. They shouldn’t do it if it didn’t meet the qualifications. If it became a problem, they could go back and see what was going on. Councilwoman Jackson said she thought she shared Councilmember Moody’s thoughts, in terms of changing the criteria for this purpose. She asked if they would have another way to prohibit trucks, adjusting the traffic pattern so that trucks weren’t allowed down that street. If that was the reason why they were trying to work around the parameters, they may be able to help the real reason, and not change the precedent that they might regret down the road. Chairman Seekings said this stretch of street would be parallel to the project, and that would be the biggest construction project in the history of the City. They would close down the street right next door. There was no other way, because they couldn’t currently limit the hours of construction. There was no other way to redirect traffic. This street would get increased traffic 4 to 5 fold, and to not give them some protection, was short sighted. They would be back once the project started. The traffic count today would be double. It was a single speed hump for a neighborhood that would be subject to 2-3 years of massive construction. They needed some way to calm and divert traffic, which other than this, they didn’t have another way. Councilwoman Jackson asked if it was possible to do it as a temporary hump and Chairman Seekings said they didn’t want it forever. They would repave the street once the project was done, and the traffic hump probably wouldn’t stay there. Mayor Tecklenburg asked if they knew if there was a designated delivery entry/exit for the project and Chairman Seekings said he believed there were two, one from the south, and one from the west. Mr. Somerville said he knew there was one from Broad Street, that was supposed to be the main access, but they were also supposed to use a portion of the park as a lay down area. Mayor Tecklenburg said they had 2 4-way stops at either end, so a truck would not be able to get going that fast. It wasn’t about the speed, but about the access. There was good reason to use Gadsden Street if there was an access point there. He wanted to confirm the entry/exit plan for deliveries to the site before agreeing. Councilmember Moody said it seemed like the trucks wouldn’t want to drive so much on the side streets and that Broad and Lockwood would be the main egress and ingress. Chairman Seekings said it would be, but for a number of reasons they would see a lot of traffic through the neighborhoods. One, every day there was high tide and they couldn’t get through the corner at Lockwood, and two, in the mornings, the back-up of traffic went around Broad and Lockwood. The easy way was to access through Beaufain, Wentworth, come down the south way, and use the short-cuts. It would be a nightmare for them, and they had done a lot to them already. He would love to see them be forward thinking and try to come up with some traffic solutions. This was the only one, currently, that was available to them. During the course of the project, the corner of Lockwood and Broad would continue to be flooded and closed more often. They had started using the valve system, and it was working, so they had created more of a reason for cars to go down that street, but hadn’t come up with a solution for Lockwood and Broad Streets. They needed to give these people some protection. Mayor Tecklenburg asked if they could defer it to the next meeting. Councilmember Moody said he wasn’t ready to go for this, because he had some neighborhoods that wanted these, and they had been turned down because they hadn’t hit the requirements. Mayor Tecklenburg said he didn’t mind making a special exception; he just wanted to know more about the delivery access points. Councilmember Wagner said it seemed like they were looking at it backwards. If 254 cars could average 16 mph, and they were going to put 500 there, why did they need to slow them down? They would slow down because there were more cars. Chairman Seekings said that speed humps discouraged larger vehicles and trucks from using that route. Councilwoman Jackson said she would agree with the Mayor that they could just defer it, and she would like to know about the opportunities in terms of being temporary. There were a lot of neighborhoods on James Island that didn’t meet the thresholds that wanted the speed humps. Councilmember Moody asked if the Beach Company could help with this. Chairman Seekings said he guaranteed that, but the Committee would still have to approve it being there. Councilmember Moody said they it seemed like they could require where the deliveries went. Chairman Seekings said it was unlikely that they would set a delivery route that they would then enforce. Mr. Benjamin said when this was created in 2000, there were a lot of different options of traffic calming that were made available, and they should take a look back at that report. It had been whittled down to just speed humps, so most citizens associated speed humps as being the only option for traffic calming. They only had $61,000 given per year for traffic calming. They had asked for citizens to get the buy-in from the neighborhood first before they did a study, so that they had that on the front-end. There was community buy-in at this location. Getting more context was important, but they tried to emphasize community buy-in on the front side before they had the staff go out and study. On the motion of Councilwoman Jackson, seconded by Councilmember Moody, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the Traffic Calming Speed Hump for St. Margaret Street. On the motion of Councilmember Moody, seconded by Councilwoman Jackson, the Committee voted unanimously to defer the Traffic Calming Speed Hump for Gadsden Street. Miscellaneous Business Councilwoman Jackson stated that they had been underserved by the SCDOT in recent years and months, for things that they knew were safety factors and putting their citizens at risk. It would be helpful to have a special works session, or however they could drill down into the things that they were concerned about, and have more of a concentrated effort to reach the ability of the SCDOT to make the changes. The day had come that they knew a lot more about traffic patterns in their own localities than the State did. They needed to make a real effort to get their attention. Chairman Seekings said they would put it on the agenda for discussion at the next meeting. Councilmember Moody asked if it would be helpful if they had someone from the State there. Chairman Seekings said they should have a discussion about their strategy and then could talk to the State. Having no further business, the Committee adjourned at 2:48 p.m. Bethany Whitaker Council Secretary