Letter: Lady’s Island needs help

The Boundary Street project in Beaufort is now costing another $173,000. Along probably the busiest section of Boundary Street it is very important to distract drivers to view the marsh rather than pay attention to their driving. If seeing the marsh is that important then people should get out and walk on the new $300,000-plus walkway, or now $473,000-plus walkway, not view it as they drive by. How could the city of Beaufort possibly be talked into the change?

Now let’s look at traffic on Lady’s Island. What a mess, and a hastily-drawn-up plan by the city of Beaufort does nothing about the future.

It is too expensive to buy up land alongside the existing road to widen the roads, according to the Boundary Street consultant. With the proposed expansion on Lady’s Island, widening the existing roadways will be necessary in the very near future.

Two things need to be done now: buy the rights of way now because it will not be cheaper in the future; and stop commercial development right next to existing roadways so widening can be done later.

That still does not solve the problem of getting on and off Lady’s Island, and the safety issue of the population currently at hand. Either replace the Woods Memorial Bridge, the cheapest solution, or put another access to and from Lady’s Island somewhere on the north end.

This story was originally published April 25, 2017 at 1:58 PM with the headline "Letter: Lady’s Island needs help."