No golf carts, traffic changes set for Myrtle Beach holiday weekend. What to expect
If you’re expecting to cruise in your golf cart Memorial Day weekend along Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, you can forget it.
Myrtle Beach officials are developing an aggressive plan in an effort to deal with the throngs of visitors expected over the holiday.
That includes prohibiting golf carts on the boulevard, changing traffic patterns to one-way and cracking down on the city’s youth curfew.
Memorial Day, May 25, is usually considered the official start of the tourist season and is one of the busiest times of the year for the coastal city.
Managing the high-volume of vacationers has been a talking point for officials and residents for years, culminating this year in the ending of a long-time traffic plan that city officials said was hurting tourism and downtown businesses.
How to control large amounts of traffic and pedestrians
In past years, law enforcement used its Summer Emergency Vehicle Access Plan, or SEVAP, more commonly called flushing, to deal with traffic and the large number of pedestrians along Ocean Boulevard. However, city officials decided earlier this year to do away with flushing – a plan that law enforcement has used for years to seasonally reroute traffic on weekend nights to help with response times.
Now, officials are struggling with how to manage the influx of visitors in the downtown tourist area.
Since January, officers have been taking measures to clear the boulevard of vehicles whenever traffic becomes backed up along the street or pedestrians are unable to cross the road safely, according to Myrtle Beach Police spokesperson Randolph Angotti.
But controlling the large number of crowds that fill the sidewalks and boardwalk in the popular tourist area remains an issue during the vacation season. A large fight during spring break earlier in April required multiple officers to break it up and resulted in three juveniles being arrested. Last year during this time, a deadly mass shooting involving an officer happened in the same area also during spreak break. One person was killed and 11 others were injured.
What to expect when visiting Memorial Day weekend
One of the ways city officials and law enforcement are planning to deal with Ocean Boulevard traffic is to turn the southbound lane one way from 28th Avenue North to 29th Avenue South from 6 a.m. Friday, May 22, through 6 a.m. Monday, May 25, according to a presentation given to the city Human Rights Commission by Emergency Management Director Travis Glatki. The northbound lane will be reserved for first responders.
There also will be barricades to contain pedestrian traffic to the sidewalks.
Glatki said Friday that the traffic plan has not been finalized, but “we’re close.”
There will be access points to Kings Highway, Glatki said. However, drivers will not be able to use Chester Street, Withers Drive or Yaupon Drive as a cut-through.
Golf carts will be prohibited on Ocean Boulevard during these times. And law enforcement will strictly enforce its youth curfew law, working to have those under the age of 17 off the boulevard in the tourist district by midnight.
A new youth curfew for the city was implemented last year specifically for Myrtle Beach‘s Central Business District. The curfew prohibits teenagers downtown alone after 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. There are some exceptions to the curfew, including youth who are with a guardian or parent, work or emergency situations and sports.
Angotti said that officers are not just enforcing the downtown curfew, but also the citywide juvenile curfew of midnight to 6 a.m.
Glatki said that having a traffic plan has greatly increased the response times of law enforcement.
He said the biggest concern is how many people will actually be in the city during the Memorial Day weekend because of the rising gas prices due to the Middle East conflict.
“We don’t know if people are going to travel or if people are going to stay home,” Glatki said.
In the past, officials have had an idea of the number of people that were expected based on passenger information from the Myrtle Beach International Airport, visitor counts and South Carolina Department of Transportation’s traffic count.
But with the concern over gas prices and people’s travel plans, it’s making it difficult to plan when it comes to staffing. Myrtle Beach will have “upstaffing” during the holiday weekend, and both visitors and residents can expect to see a number of city officers, as well as other police agencies, patrolling the area.
