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By teaming up with a local conservation organization, advocates from Charleston Moves helped turned a monster road for automobiles into a safer street for people who walk and bike.

The project in question was Harborview Drive, a thoroughfare on James Island that backs up with cars and school buses during certain periods of the day. The City Council aimed to remedy the congestion by redesigning the road to funnel traffic even faster.

Because the new design would take down a number of live oaks, the first group to raise a red flag was Will You Remember Our Trees? Quickly, the conservation advocates turned to Charleston Moves to examine the design and get involved in the campaign to calm the new beast. The advocates took a particularly keen interest in the stretch of pavement as it represents a key portion of the group’s Battery2Beach corridor — a proposed 24-mile bicycle route that runs from the Isle of Palms to Folly Beach.

“We found [the redesign] to be a monster,” Charleston Moves’ advocates wrote on their blog, “almost 70 feet wide, with a two-way multi-use path on only one side of the road, speed limit increased from 40 to 45mph, a center (suicide) lane, and not a single crosswalk!”

Drawing on his professional background as an engineer, Charleston Moves’ Vice Chair Chris Tullmann took a closer look at the plans and found that the redesign would do more harm than good. “Instead of helping connect many lovely neighborhoods on that portion of James Island,” Charleston Moves noted on its blog, “the project would instead create a monstrous concrete and asphalt “gash” through it, very likely to diminish property values, cheapen commerce and tarnish the overall quality of life.”

So Charleston Moves kicked off a letter writing and publicity campaign that urged the city council to reconsider — and they did. Thanks to the advocates’ mobilization, officials revised their plans and put forward a vastly improved design for the road with bike lanes on both sides of the street, and a sidewalk running among the old live oaks on the south side of the roadway.

Of course, it’s not everything the advocates had asked for, but now that the discussion had been reopened there will be another round of public comments next year. Learn more on CHS Moves’ blog.

Blog contributed by Alliance intern Adam Levine

Charleston Moves is working to connect downtown Charleston to its surrounding beaches with a network of safe, accessible bike paths.

The 24-mile project will allow bicyclists of all skill levels to cruise to the beach or travel around town. Leaders from Charleston Moves also hope this project will promote a broader, regional mindset when it comes to bicycling and walking.

For more information about this initiative, watch the video or visit http://www.battery2beach.blogspot.com.