A Rapid Transit Map for Charleston

The City of Charleston, South Carolina—and the metropolitan area consisting of Charleston, Berkeley, and Dorchester Counties—has seem tremendous growth over the past decade. Continuously touted as the “Best City in the World” by Conde Nast and other publications, people who once only came as tourists have now decided to stay, making the Tri-County Area the 12th fastest growing metropolitan area in the nation (Slade, 2013). With this comes growing pains, one of which is how to handle the transportation requirements of so many additional residents. “It is important for Charlestonians, and Americans in general, to think beyond the car in terms of transportation.” This quote, from Ben Cotton in an article in the Charleston City Paper (Spence, 2015), resonates with the sentiments of many, but is also a source of contention for some.

The automobile became central to the American way of life in the mid-20th century. American individualism, a rapid increase in population after World War II, and the vast availability of land in the USA allowed for the car to become the main focus for development from the 1940s to the present day. Charleston has been no stranger to this form of development, but with this current growth has come a pivotal moment in the city’s history. With more people come more cars, and with more cars comes more traffic; creating a substantial burden on the area’s infrastructure. Constant calls for the widening of roads, and more highways have traditionally been the way of dealing with these issues, but is this the correct way of addressing this transportation dilemma?

The city of Atlanta, Georgia and its metropolitan area experienced a period of unprecedented growth in the mid to late 20th century. Being a product of its time, the city looked to solve its transportation woes with more highways and more lanes. The result? More traffic, increased infrastructure costs, and the most vehicle fatalities in the state of Georgia (with I-285 being the deadliest interstate in the nation) (“Georgia Crashes, Injuries & Fatalities Statistics”, 2016; Santos, 2015). Additionally, resources abound that show the social and environmental costs of multiple-lane highways and car-centric development (see works by Jane Jacobs and Peter Calthorpe to name only a couple). Atlanta’s metropolitan area now has the struggle of resolving these issues, showing that automobiles cannot be the sole form of transportation for a growing city.

In the aforementioned Charleston City Paper Article “Transportation Planner Draws Up ‘Fantasy’ Charleston Rapid Transit Map”, the need for a diversification of transportation types for the Charleston area is addressed. Ben Cotton—as the title says—is the transportation planner who created this “fantasy” rapid transit map in an attempt to start the conversation on what these alternate forms of transportation could (and should) be. As a result, I took it upon myself to create a rapid transit map of my own; one that could be more feasible, and maybe even realized in the future.

The map that I propose takes into consideration the need for at-grade and above-grade transit due to Charleston’s high water table, as well as the fact that the historic buildings on the peninsula must be left undisturbed by the development of this transit system. My transit map aims to locate the most essential points of Charleston County as possible transit stops, seeing them as nodes to allow for a wider array of transportation options to radiate from them such as buses, bikes, and even traditional automobiles. These lines run along the Highway 61/17 corridor, I-26, and I-526 in hopes of utilizing that infrastructure that is already in place to facilitate a more efficient means of creating the transit system. Furthermore, the plan aims to create a trolley that runs the length of King Street as it did in the early 20th century. The goal was to imagine a transit system that could be built, and could be financially supported by the stops that it services.

It was a great pleasure to see Ben Cotton starting the conversation on alternative transportation options for the Tri-County Area, and it is my hope to continue this fruitful discussion and see it enacted upon in the near future. Growth in Charleston does not seem to being slowing down anytime soon, and even though change is always fearful, we owe it to ourselves and future generations to work with it—and even embrace it—so that Charleston can continue to be the greatest city that we always knew it was.

References

Cotton, B. Alternative Transportation Group. “Transit Dream: Charleston.” http://www.alternativetransportationgroup.com/

Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety. “Georgia’s Crashes, Injuries & Fatalities Statistics.” 2016. https://www.gahighwaysafety.org/research/ga-crashes/injuries/fatalities/

Santos, A. “Georgia’s I-285 in the deadliest interstate in the nation, study says.” November 10, 2015. http://commuting.blog.ajc.com/2015/11/06/americas-deadliest-interstate-is-in-georgia-study-says/

Slade, D. “Charleston area among nation’s fastest-growing.” March 14, 2014. http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20130314/PC16/130319590

Spence, S. “Transportation planner draws up ‘fantasy’ Charleston rapid transit map.” December 1, 2015. http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/TheBattery/archives/2015/12/01/transportation-planner-draws-up-fantasy-charleston-rapid-transit-map