Escaping the beach: Isle of Palms, Sullivan’s Island work to ease brutal summer traffic
The more popular Charleston’s beaches get, the worse traffic becomes. And there’s not a lot of room to grow.
Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island, in particular, have little room for traffic control. They each have two ways to get off the island, and one of those ways is to go to the other island. The end of a day at the beach — or the second raindrops start to fall — turns the islands into traffic logjams where it can take ages to escape back to the mainland.
While they know their critics want more access to the beaches, the mayors of both towns say they are barely able to manage the current deluge of visitors.
Traffic is “the big nut that we’re all trying to crack, quite honestly,” Isle of Palms Mayor Phillip Pounds said.
To manage those visitors, Sullivan’s Island Mayor Pat O’Neil said he wants to see more support from Charleston County and the state with handling traffic congestion.
“We’re providing beach access in our own way to the greater population of South Carolina one way or another,” he said “We’ve been trying to stress that beach traffic, when you get it right down to it, is the same as after a USC football game or a Clemson football game or a big concert someplace.
“There are protocols for managing those kinds of events. We submit that a busy afternoon at the beach ... is an event. We should treat it as such, but we need help from the county and the state to treat it as such.”
For now, Isle of Palms, Sullivan’s Island and Mount Pleasant are working together to better manage traffic flow on and off the islands. The local municipalities have also partnered with local TV station WCIV ABC News 4 to get traffic information to people.
“We’re working with (WCIV) at their initiation on a communications plan to really try to get the word out so people can get in the habit of, ‘Let’s check the traffic cameras. Let’s check the traffic reports before we start a 40-minute drive to the beach to avoid getting caught in traffic,’” O’Neil said.
The islands are also investing money in:
- Hiring more staff who can manage traffic at congested intersections on busy days
- Conducting a traffic study this summer
- Adjusting stoplight signal timings as necessary
- New and frequently updated websites with traffic and parking information
- Adding CARTA beach shuttle service to and from Mount Pleasant
“We’re trying to enhance people’s visit to our island, knowing it’s going to be crowded and knowing there’s a lot of people that want to come here,” Pounds said.
