FOCUS, Smith: Pandemic lesson: Time to stop the asphalt gravy train

By Charlie Smith, special to Charleston Currents  | When the coronavirus quarantine is over, let’s be sure to remember one of the most important lessons that we have learned: Let’s remember what it was like living in Charleston without traffic. 

The lesson we should learn from this experience is that it’s time to stop building bigger and bigger roads that only invite more and more cars and trucks that divide our community and diminish the health and well-being of our citizens. 

Smith

It’s time to tell our General Assembly and our county and city governments that equitable mobility is what the public is entitled to, not just more asphalt. Tell them that it’s time to break up the S.C. Department of Transportation (SCDOT) and create an agency that can focus on mass transit, inter-city rail, “Complete Streets” and multi-modal transit for all citizens, not just on more wasteful inefficient projects for the benefit of road contractors. 

It’s time to stop the Asphalt Gravy Train that’s destroying our communities. It’s time to prioritize mass transit within and between our cities. It’s time to build our streets to serve everyone, not just the car-driving public. It’s time to maximize the use of rail to get as many tractor trailers off of our roads as possible. It’s time for everyone to understand that no one has EVER paved their way out of a traffic problem! Trying to solve traffic problems by adding more asphalt is like trying to solve obesity by loosening one’s belt.

People who live in North Charleston who are about to lose their homes again to the widening of I-526 — on top of having to deal with this virus for the next few months — would appreciate it if we’d scrap the “Asphalt Gravy Train” 526 plan. They’d appreciate it if we’d prioritize a mass transit system that serves everyone in our community and quit separating and destroying our neighborhoods with endless asphalt. They’d appreciate “Complete Streets” so they don’t have to get killed trying to walk across the North Bridge because they don’t have a grocery store any closer than West Ashley. 

Good idea: We could all benefit if the proposed Bus Rapid Transit System in Charleston would connect West Ashley and Citadel Mall to downtown at the Naval Hospital property via the North Bridge right now, instead of us having to wait years to figure out how to connect West Ashley to downtown via Savannah Highway at the Ashley River bridges. We have excessive right-of-way along the entire route from Citadel Mall across the North Bridge to the Naval Hospital where we can connect to the main BRT line to downtown and to Summerville right now. 

Hundreds of thousands of people in our region are suddenly understanding the real value and power of one $1,200 check. It would be hard for most to even conceptualize what $2 billion could do, but we’re well on the way to spending $2 billion on just two I-526 projects. 

The truth is that we absolutely don’t have to do that. Two billion dollars will build 100 miles of Bus Rapid Transit. We could connect Charleston to Columbia with BRT for that amount of money. The truth is that we should spend that $2 billion on the most robust BRT system that we can build. We should also have smaller-scale innercity loops locally and we should have larger-scale intercity transit connectivity all over South Carolina; but the SCDOT would rather spend billions and billions on the same old Asphalt Gravy Train.

Let’s tell our leadership all across this great state of ours to stop prioritizing cars and to start prioritizing people and human mobility for a change. Let’s remember what streets without traffic look like and let’s make human mobility a statewide infrastructure reality!

Longtime West Ashley advocate Charlie Smith is a local Realtor. Have a comment?  Send to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com

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