Driving School in James Island, SC

JAMES ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) — The James Island Town Council voted to request that the South Carolina Department of Transportation remove a median from a planned safety improvement project.

The SCDOT project SC-171 involves safety improvements along Folly Road, a busy corridor used daily by island residents. The project includes sidewalks, better crossways and infrastructure updates, but a proposed median has drawn opposition from residents and council members.

“Call us, the people of the Town of James Island foolish, but we know this road, we drive this road every day and we think these are going to be detrimental to our neighborhoods, detrimental to our businesses and detrimental to the functionality of Folly Road,” Councilman Lewis Dodson said.

Dodson made a motion to authorize the mayor’s request that SCDOT remove the controversial median from the project and replace it with other effective safety measures. Thursday evening, the council approved the motion unanimously.

Residents spoke during public comment, defending their concerns about peace, safety, business and quality of life.

“55 years of living on this James Island, I got a big problem with it. I don’t just have a problem. Every person in this folder right here, pages and pages and pages of citizens,” Marilyn Clifford, a James Island community member, said as she showed a packet of signatures protesting the median.

Another resident, John Peters, said the median would add to existing congestion problems on the road.

“They want to just add more to the problem. That’s really what it’s going to be. More congestion. If not, there’ll end up being bumper-to-bumper accidents more than anything and still we’re going to have the problem,” Peters said.

“We want 90%, let’s just work out the safety of the rest of it. That’s the goal,” Dodson said.

Councilman Michael Williams said the town must be willing to fight to ensure the rest of the project moves forward if the median is rejected.

Just two weeks ago, SCDOT engineers came to talk about the project with the community members and nearly everyone echoed the same sentiment: they liked most of the plan, just not the median.

After continuing to ask if it was possible to move forward with the improvement project without the medians, residents feel they are still in the dark with no clear answer from engineers.

“I was told he was noncommittal and listened to us, but I felt like he was somewhat defensive of the project. I feel like he believes that it will not happen if we don’t, but he did imply that he would look at things again,” Mayor Brook Lyon said.

A concern engineers expressed during the last meeting two weeks ago was that the project’s funding would be dependent on the median’s cost.

Lyon said the town will begin conversations with federal representatives to explore alternative options and what that means for funding the rest of the project.

“We have to be willing to fight to the nth degree to make sure that 90% happens to make sure that the feds commit to making this happen if we reject the median,” Williams said.

JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) — As Charleston County moves forward with a more than $350 million road project aimed at easing congestion at the intersection of U.S. Highway 17 and Main Road, some drivers said the construction is disrupting their daily routine and raising safety concerns.

The long-planned project includes building a new interchange with flyover off-ramps connecting northbound and southbound U.S. 17 to Main Road, along with a Main Road spur bridge over U.S. 17. County leaders have said the improvements are designed to address persistent traffic backups in one of the region’s fastest-growing areas.

A key concern for one driver, James Adams, is the closure of Old Charleston Highway, which is being used to store construction equipment and allow crews to move between the two major roadways. The closure has limited direct access to several nearby businesses, including a Waffle House, a laundromat and a seafood restaurant.

Drivers who once used Old Charleston Highway as a side route now must enter and exit through the heavily congested intersection, navigating fast-moving traffic and frequent standstills.

Adams, who has lived in the area since 2016 and commutes from James Island, said he used to regularly visit the Waffle House near the intersection. Now, he often avoids it.

“With the construction, it’s not safe to turn around,” Adams said. “No matter how far you go down, you’re going to have to fight the traffic and then turn around and come back. I’m living over on James Island, which makes it a big problem.”

He said he is especially frustrated by the decision to block off direct access to the businesses.

“I’m just concerned that they have blocked the entrance into the businesses over here,” Adams said. “I mean, there’s no reason that they can’t allow customers to still come straight across.”

Adams said he has also noticed fewer customers inside the restaurants.

“All the businesses here, not only just Waffle House, are having the same problem,” Adams said. “People are not going… because of this construction. In fact, the Waffle House would normally be completely full right now and there’s just a few people in it.”

Adams said when construction first began, Old Charleston Highway remained open to drivers. Now that access is blocked, he worries the detours are not only inconvenient but potentially dangerous.

Project Manager Herb Nimz said the county understands the frustrations but emphasized the long-term goal of the work.

“We appreciate the community’s patience as the U.S. 17 and Main Road improvements take shape,” Nimz said. “There’s no question that a project of this scale brings temporary disruptions, and the project team is working hard to manage those impacts while keeping this critical work on track. In the end, these short-term inconveniences will pay off with safer travel, reduced congestion, and smoother, more reliable commutes for everyone.”

The overall project is expected to be completed by September 2028. There is currently no timeline for when Old Charleston Highway will reopen.

CHARLESTON — The archive room at the county's main library branch will temporarily close and move its materials before the building undergoes renovations.

The South Carolina room — a room that holds a collection of books, maps and other research materials detailing the history of the state with an emphasis on Charleston and the Lowcountry — will be unavailable starting May 1 for roughly eight to 10 weeks as staff move its contents to 1248 Camp Road on James Island.

The archives will be made available by appointment and electronic correspondence only while at the James Island location, said to Doug Reynolds, CCPL associate director of communications and marketing. He wrote in an email that hours of operation for that location will be released once they’re finalized.

The library on Calhoun Street is the last of the county libraries scheduled for upgrades. The work is part of a $108.5 million referendum that called for updates to all Charleston County Public Library branches, which voters passed in 2014.

While the main location is closed for renovations, the county will lease space at 1142 Morrison Drive — the former International Longshoreman’s Association’s union hall building — for two years.

The new location will have the children, teen and adult book collections, as well as public computer space and room for activities like story time, CCPL Executive Director Angela Craig previously told The Post and Courier.

Located on the Upper Peninsula and close to a CARTA bus stop, the union hall site will be easily accessible for patrons, she said.

The renovations are expected to cost $7.8 million. An additional $3.2 million has been set aside for architecture fees, permitting fees and contingency funding for emergencies and any unforeseen cost increases.

A major part of the renovations include relocating the teen section from the third floor to the second floor, which will make the second floor a dedicated youth services floor. All adult content on the second floor will be moved to the third floor.

The library will also update its technology, like projectors for the auditorium and meeting rooms.

The renovations for the main branch are expected to take around 18 months. Once the construction timeline is finalized, Reynolds wrote that they’ll share specifics on when the library will close.

JAMES ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) — Several local entities are coming together to continue monitoring and keeping the James Island Creek as clean as possible.

The Town of James Island Public Works Committee to accept an agreement between the Town of James Island, the city of Charleston and Charleston County to work together on improving the creek’s water quality by implementing watershed plans, managing drainage to prevent pollution and addressing high bacteria levels in the creek, which is classified as an “impaired waterway.”

The James Island town council is set to vote on the agreement to make it official on Thursday.

The James Island Creek’s water quality parameter of concern is a fecal indicator bacteria called Enterococci, which has been identified in the creek since 2016. This form of bacteria originates from the intestine of warm-blooded animals, and although not generally considered harmful to humans, it is an indicator of other pathogenic bacteria that pose a human health risk.

“There are higher than higher levels of bacteria than we would like to see in the creek, which can lead to health issues for anyone swimming in it, whether it’s you or your pets or your family,” Elsbeth Noe, a Charleston County civil engineer, says. “It can cause stomach symptoms or skin infections and things like that, and then equally importantly, high levels of bacteria also have negative impacts on the environment and the wildlife that lives there.”

The specific agreement is for MS4 monitoring, which is for a municipal separate storm sewer system. The agreement also includes the collection of grab samples and supplementary environmental data, laboratory analysis for bacteria found in the creek and data analysis and reports on their findings.

“It’s important to monitor the creek because monitoring is really what allows us to find different pollutant sources,” Noe says. “We want to try and find the things that we can control.”

An assessment study with an initial term of one year and up to five additional one-year terms will also be conducted.

Town of James Island show officials estimate the total cost of the monitoring to be less than $70,000 per year. The South Carolina Department of Environmental Services confirms the Town of James Island is covered under the Charleston County MS4 permit.

The 4,352-acre creek is sometimes used for boating, kayaking, swimming and fishing, but officials want to warn residents that it should be used with caution.

“James Island Creek is a beautiful, beautiful body of water that cuts through the heart of James Island,” Charleston City Councilwoman Leslie Skardon says. “This testing is a priority for the city, the county, and the town to make sure that the people who live on James Island can continue to enjoy what makes the island so special.”

In collaboration with the Charleston Water System and Charleston Waterkeeper, these local entities also released a watershed management for the creek in 2021.

In 2024, the Charleston Waterkeeper said the James Island Creek passed the bacteria level test 10 percent more than in 2023, meaning it is on the route to recovery. However, there is still a long way to go and officials say the monitoring will help tremendously.

“Restoring the health of the creek is very important to us, but we think it’s important that residents know that through these efforts we can’t necessarily make it 100% safe to swim all of the time,” Noe says. “It is a long process to detect these pollutants and even if we find one, a new one may come up later.”

The Town of James Island council meeting is on Thursday at 7 p.m.

“It is so important to invest in our environment and in science and testing because if we can spend a little dollars now for prevention later on from someone getting sick, it’s well worth it,” Skardon says.

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