Coleman Revamp Moves Forward

Town leaders are pressing ahead with a $7.6 million overhaul of Coleman Boulevard, the four-lane, four-mile thoroughfare envisioned as Mount Pleasant’s future main street.

Town leaders this month will present the South Carolina Department of Transportation with preliminary plans for the road overhaul. Here’s what the plan includes:

• Parkway: Replaces most of Coleman’s center turn lane with a parkway that’s planted with vegetation. It will look similar to the parkway in place near Patriots Point Boulevard.
• Bike lane: A five-foot bike lane will connect the Ravenel Bridge to Sullivan’s Island. When complete, it will add a link straight from Charleston’s Battery to the beach.
• Lighting: The town will add lampposts like what’s in place near Moultrie Middle School.
• Power lines: Some of Coleman’s power lines will go underground to improve aesthetics.
• Roundabout: A huge, multi-lane roundabout will ease congestion -- if it works properly – at the intersection of Coleman, Chuck Dawley and Ben Sawyer boulevards.

Even as the project moves forward, however, designers are still working out the finer points of the plan, such as how to convert one of the town’s busiest intersections into a roundabout.

“The roundabout is an improvement over what we have today,” said Jim Fisher, an engineer for TranSystems, the consulting firm planning the Coleman overhaul.

The intersection is complicated because established businesses are so close to the proposed roundabout’s path. The Royall Ace Hardware will need its own entry and exit in the roundabout’s design.

“You won’t see that in many of the other roundabout designs,” Fisher said. “We want to make sure we protect those businesses to the extent possible.”

The traffic circle also involves blending high-capacity roadways that are jammed with cars at peak times, all traveling at different speeds.

Almost all the roundabout plans – nearly 10 presented to the town at a recent meeting -- scored an “F” grade in computer modeling for one reason or another.

But Fisher said the roundabout still makes the most sense at the intersection because traffic circles typically reduce motorist speed and traffic accident severity. On top of that, the plan will accommodate traffic growth through 2030.

The idea behind the overhaul is to create a main street in Mount Pleasant, a town that grew gradually over the years without a central business district.

Town councilmen at a recent meeting expressed concern over the roundabout plan specifically as well as the location of a traffic light at Live Oak Drive and Coleman Boulevard.

Fisher said there was time to work out details as the project moves through 10-month review process. After that, the town needs to move forward with purchasing an estimated $600,000 worth of right-of-way property from 30 or so impacted landowners.

“There are enough nuances with this whole corridor where we would like to get some feedback from the (DOT) posthaste,” Fisher said.

Town residents will get the chance to comment on the proposal at a February meeting, according to a timetable Fisher distributed last week. Mayor Billy Swails said he was confident residents will be able to impact the plan.

“We need to stay on track with this project,” Swails said. “We just tweaked Johnnie Dodds and we’re in construction now.”