Dysfunction Junction

It will be at least eight months before the South Caroliana Department of Transportation (SCDOT) begins construction on a new intersection between Main Road and Highway 17 South (aka Savannah Highway). And at least a year before the work is completed.
And yet, most people already seem to hate what will be the new intersection. Actually, it will cease to be an intersection, as the two roads won’t exactly “intersect” once the project is completed.
Currently, vehicles leaving Johns Island along Main Road can cross Savannah Highway and turn left if they so desire. But not under the new plan, which has already been approved.
In about a year, vehicles wanting to turn left onto Savannah Highway or go straight from Main Road will be forced to turn right.
Makes sense, right?
And then in a couple of hundred yards, those same vehicles would have to merge into a new “super street” turnaround in the existing grass median, where drivers would then be required to execute a u-turn into southbound traffic, before passing by the intersection they just exited.
Simple, right?
“It crosses my eyes just to look at it,” says City Councilman Aubry Alexander. “How do you get to where you want to go? By driving by and doing a flip-around and come back to it?”
Beyond confusing as all get-out, Alexander sees the coming interchange as a waste of gas, even if red lights are avoided.
And what if the same driver wants instead to cross Hwy. 17? Then he or she gets to do the same maneuver and then turn right.
“If you ask me, a fly-over or a cloverleaf would have been the answer,” said Alexander.
The “super street” plan was criticized harshly at a June “town hall” meeting City Council hosted at the Ashley River Creative Arts Elementary gymnatorium. One attendee called the plan a “stupid street” to the amusement of more than 200 attendees.
What was the subject of the town hall meeting?
The super street project?
No, it was to inform area residents as to the progress the city was making to help save Citadel Mall and the Sam Rittenberg Boulevard commercial corridor.
So there was public clamor against the project at a wholly unrelated public meeting — that’s how many are receiving the intersection improvement project.
Public criticisms were sharp, too in May of 2013, when SCDOT held a public hearing on the super street plan. But the state is going forward with its plan.
Why? Money: pure and simple.
Keith Riddle, the primary engineer in charge of the project said the state’s hands were tied. It had to do something to improve the safety of the current interchange, where a faulty traffic pattern combined with a heavy traffic load has led to avoidable accidents.
But what to do?
According to Riddle, “fly-over” or cloverleaf intersection would have cost nearly 10 times as much. He said the super “street solution” was around $3.5 million, while the cement-heavy options would have weighed in at close to $30 million.
Part and parcel with a land-bridge, located mere blocks from a water-bridge that crosses the Ashley River, would be the relocation and losses of at least nine existing businesses at or near the existing intersection, according to the state’s study.
An enhanced, five-lane intersection — like the one the DOT built in Mt. Pleasant at the Mathis Ferry/Hwy. 17 intersection — would eat up businesses, too, but likely not to the same extent, as it would only affect the Johns Island side of the highway.
As rural and comparatively lightly-traveled as many of the roads are at this end of West Ashley, local and state officials are planning intersections for the future. And that future, judging by the West Ashley traffic circle begun a few miles away, could be a booming one.
State officials like Riddle may have had their hands tied by legislators, too. Consider that the federal government two years ago identified over $27 billion in needed roadway and infrastructure projects in South Carolina.
And how much money did the General Assembly add to the state’s annual budget to combat the infrastructure? Try a half-billion in 2013 and none specifically this year, according to observers.
So, a turnaround/flip-around/double-back/no crossies it is. Like it or lump it.