Restripe a stretch of busy Boundary Street into 2 lanes? Beaufort residents have questions
Beaufort County wants to put a busy stretch of Boundary Street in Beaufort on a “road diet” for six months. But residents of Beaufort, already steamed about one Beaufort County-backed plan for another major road in the city, want more information before endorsing the concept.
A “road diet” is road engineering parlance for reducing the number of lanes through re-striping, then using the excess space gained for other uses, such as turn lanes or sidewalks or buffers, making the road safer and more inviting for other uses including bikes and pedestrians.
In the case of Boundary Street, Beaufort County is asking Beaufort if it would support a pilot project to re-stripe the four-lane stretch from Ribaut Road to Bellamy Curve, making two 12-foot-wide lanes with a 15-foot center turn lane. Both sides of the new configuration would have 2.5-foot-wide buffers between the traffic lanes the sidewalk.
The high-profile, 13-block stretch runs past the Beaufort National Cemetery, the downtown tennis courts, USC Beaufort housing and side streets that feed residential neighborhoods.
Brittanee Bishop, a program and finance manager in Beaufort County’s Engineering Department, said the change might reduce traffic on the busy stretch and improve the safety for USC Beaufort students who walk to and from student housing and the main campus. The road diet, she added, is a pilot project. Traffic patterns throughout the area would be studied for six months to see if there are improvements.
The Federal Highway Administration says road diets are a proven method of calming traffic and reducing accidents. A road diet project has been successful in the City of Greenville, Bishop said, but she noted that change is hard.
Beaufort County, she said, will not proceed without the city’s blessing.
“It’s a project I can either do or not do for the city,” Bishop said.
Currently, the county says, the interior lanes on the road’s four lanes between Ribaut and Bellamy Curve are used primarily as left-turn lanes, leaving one lane on each side as a through lane. But the assumption that the interior lanes are primarily used as turn lanes is contested by some Beaufort residents who regularly use the road and worry a lane reduction will back up traffic.
“All four lanes are used pretty routinely I think,” said Kay Merrill, a resident of the Pigeon Point neighborhood. “In Pigeon Point, we have to use Boundary Street to get out of our neighborhood. One way or another it’s going to impact what we do, where we go.”
She questioned how the change might impact the funeral processions into the Beaufort National Cemetery.
Ribaut Road project
The $61.7 million Reimagine Ribaut Road project to overhaul 5.5 miles from Boundary Street in Beaufort to the Bell Bridge in Port Royal is also looming over the discussion of the Boundary Street work. When that project came out last fall, it proposed reducing the lanes on Ribaut between Duke and Reynolds streets, which was strongly opposed by residents. A proposed roundabout at Ribaut Road and Boundary Street was opposed by some as well.
Beaufort County is leading the Ribaut Road project with input from the City of Beaufort and Town of Port Royal.
“Nothing personal, [but in] talking to the people, they don’t trust the county,” Councilman Neil Lipsitz told Bishop when the Boundary Street pilot project was discussed at a work session Tuesday.
Residents, Lipsitz said, are now worried that the Boundary Street restriping is a prelude to building a traffic circle at Ribaut and Boundary.
Bishop noted that the roundabout idea was taken from city’s own planning documents. However, she added, it is just one alternative.
While the Boundary Street restriping is separate from the Ribaut Road work, traffic information gathered from Boundary Street during the six-month trial will be helpful in determining the final design for Ribaut Road, Bishop said.
“We need to analyze the traffic,” Bishop said.
If the city supports the pilot plan for Boundary Street, it would take 6 to 8 weeks to develop a striping plan. The work, which the county would pay for, would be done at night. If no improvements are seen, the county says, the road can return to four lanes.
Councilman Josh Scallate said he didn’t see downside to a six-month trial, especially if it makes it safer for the USC Beaufort students, but he asked for additional traffic safety data.
“I would like to have more information before stamping off on the entire project,” Scallate said.
City Manager Scott Marshall noted that the Boundary Street road diet project, at this time, is a rough concept. Boundary Street, he added, would not be torn up during the trial, just re-striped.
In the meantime, the city will get additional data from the county before returning to the City Council for additional input, Marshall said. In the end, the city can decide that it does not want the project, he said.
