Johns Island Expressway
Limited access road takes a toll on the island and its residents
BY JOHN VERNELSON
Curch Creek separates Johns Island from Wadmalaw Island, a span the expressway would bridge. |
Johns, Kiawah, Seabrook and Wadmalaw islands are a string of sea
islands in southwestern Charleston County separated from the mainland by
the North Edisto, Wadmalaw and Stono rivers and connected to the mainland
by two bridges.
The Limehouse Bridge on Main Road crosses the Intracoastal Waterway
and ties Johns Island to the mainland and U.S. Highway 17S on the north.
The Maybank Highway bridge over the Stono River connects with James Island
and Charleston.
Most of Johns Island and Wadmalaw is rural and used for farming.
Kiawah and Seabrook island development is a mix of residential and resort,
peopled mostly with retirees.
Kiawah is internationally known for its championship golf courses.
Both Kiawah and Seabrook are protected by gates and guards, preventing
entry to either of the incorporated towns without a pass.
But the rural roads that meander across Johns Island and Wadmalaw are
open to everyone and are lined with farms, woodlands, marshes, small
groups of homes, vegetable and fruit stands and schools.
Long stretches of these two-lane roads are shaded by moss-draped live
oak canopies and crisscrossed by tidal creeks. Traffic moves slowly, often
interrupted by farm equipment, school buses and pedestrians.
The same roads are used by Kiawah and Seabrook residents traveling to
and from Charleston. Their trips are slowed by the same farmers,
pedestrians and slow-moving traffic they encountered five or 10 years ago
when they first drove out to Kiawah or Seabrook to look at what was to
become their home.
Nothing has changed
except that developers are now circling in the skies above Johns Island;
and Kiawah and Seabrook residents, frustrated by a lack of quick access to
suburban services, are trying to use projections of a sea island
population explosion as an excuse to speed up life on Johns Island and cut
the driving time to Charleston.
The means to this end, if it ever comes to fruition, will be a
four-lane, limited-access toll road that would connect Bohicket and River
Roads on the Kiawah-Seabrook end of Johns Island to Maybank Highway on the
Charleston end.
There would be no access points to the expressway between the
Charleston and Kiawah/Seabrook connectors. To prevent access by
pedestrians, farmers and motorists, the expressway would be lined with
chain-link fencing. In effect, the toll road would run from the
Kiawah/Seabrook guard gates to the Charleston connector.
The project is recommended by HNTB Corporation, an Atlanta firm hired
by Johns Island Expressway Inc., a non-profit organization formed by Johns
Island and Kiawah/Seabrook Island residents to conduct a feasibility study
for solutions to safety and travel issues on Johns Island. The study was
completed in June 1995.
If the expressway is built, it will be a joint venture of Johns Island
Expressway Inc. and the state Department of Transportation, a common
partnership of public and private sectors.
DOT would build the road but the project would be paid for by tolls
and possibly local assistance from either city and/or county governments
or special assessment districts that could include gas tax, sales tax,
resort or room tax, vehicle registration tax, property tax or impact fees
on future development. State or county bonds to reduce interest is also an
option.
Although none of the money for the road would come from DOT, its right
to eminent domain would be available to Johns Island Expressway Inc.,
making it much easier to acquire the rights-of-way for the road through
condemnation proceedings.
Proponents of the toll road say it would lessen traffic on rural roads
on Johns Island, and that limited access is critical because too many
intersections would create traffic problems on the toll road.
They also argue that special taxes and/or impact fees needed to help
pay for the road will be neither excessive nor a hardship on Johns
Islanders.
But such a road would cut Johns Island in half and forever alter its
rural nature, according to expressway opponents, who advocate more study
before a toll road is built.
"That road is strictly for people who live at Kiawah and Seabrook,"
said the Rev. Alonza Washington, president of the Johns Island/Wadmalaw
Island Ministerial Alliance.
"Islanders on either side won't have access to it or to each other
unless they drive to one end or the other to get on the expressway, or
drive around it and back to visit a neighbor who might live within walking
distance without the toll road being in the way."
Washington said special taxes and fees islanders will have to "cough
up" to help pay for a road they cannot use will eventually make it harder
for them to pay property taxes, which will cause some to lose their homes
and land.
"The people who live on Kiawah and Seabrook don't have any real
contact with island people," Washington said. "They don't know how tight
money is for some of these families. I agree that we need to plan for the
future, but there's got to be a better way than this toll road."
Washington is not the only Johns Islander against the expressway.
Similar sentiments were raised at a February meeting of a group formed
about a year ago, shortly after the toll road idea surfaced.
According to Meg Hoyle, about 1,000 people have signed a petition to
oppose any Sea Island Expressway, and call for exploring alternatives for
improving existing roads and highways on Johns Island for "the benefit of
all."
Lewis Hay, a Wadmalaw Island resident and chief architect of a
land-use plan for the island developed by a citizens' group in the 1980s,
said the root of the problem is that people on Kiawah and Seabrook want to
live in an isolated area "away from the rat race," but they want easy
access to services they would expect to have if they lived in town.
"You build a retirement home on Kiawah or Seabrook when you're 65 and
everything's okay," Hay said. "But 10 years later you're 75 and you need
to be closer to a doctor. What you and I would have to do would be to move
closer to the doctor or whatever you need, but these people don't want to
move.
"They want services brought to them, and if they have to come on the
backs of taxpayers who won't benefit, so be it."
"I agree that we need to plan for the future, but there's got to be a better way than this toll road."
Rev. Alonza Washington
