Together, we can create a dimmer future for Johns Island!
Transforming Johns Island
Together, we can create a dimmer future for Johns Island!
Together, we can create a dimmer future for Johns Island!
Together, we can create a dimmer future for Johns Island!
Our vision is to bring the Mark Clark Extension (I-526) to Johns Island as a precursor to developing every inch of Johns Island with apartments, big box stores and housing developments. We want every vestige of the Lowcountry removed so that folks feel more comfortable moving here. They certainly won't feel comfortable with the wetlands, marshes, farms, forests, roads with tree canopies and the diverse population that currently constitute the island.
We have teamed with the Big Four special interest groups - the chamber of commerce, the homebuilder association, the realtors association and the roadbuilders association - to convince Johns Islanders that the destruction of Johns Island is a good thing (for us). We know how easy it is to fool people and we are good at it!
Despite a lack of overwhelming support from Johns Island residents and the State government, we have been able to keep this zombie project on life support for many years. This has resulted in a huge increase in the cost of the project. But who cares? It's not our money. Our latest accomplishment is to send $75M to Columbia for who knows what. Again, who cares? It's not our money.
We have teamed with the Big Four to address some of the nonsensical issues our detractors have brought up. When you talk with these detractor the following will hopefully help you address their concerns and bring them into the fold. If not, just go on social media and call them names.
Folks are concerned about their current commute times, so please stress the reason for the Mark Clark Extension is to solve those traffic issues.
What you don't want to bring up is the real reason for this project is that we and our Big Four partners know big roads bring big development which brings big profits. It's part of our tried and true playbook. Once the Mark Clark Extension is built we'll have all that rural land outside the urban growth boundary unzoned to look just like Maybank Highway.
As usual, we'll be long gone when the commutes get considerably longer due to all the additional developments we envision. In the meantime, we will say we are doing this just for you. That's also part of our playbook.
When you talk to fellow islanders (we like to use the industry standard term "suckers") don't bring any of this up, just talk about reduced commute times.
This one is a doozy but we still say it straight-faced. We try to direct people's attention to the multitude of housing developments surrounding Maybank Highway and hope they don't realize that most of the island is still rural (i.e. forests, farms, wetlands).
Just don't let folks take a high-level look on Google Maps and see all the undeveloped land. But our Big Four partners have done this and they are salivating over the potential for apartments, big box stores and housing developments in the area outside the urban growth boundary.
Even with the Mark Clark Extension, just imagine how bad the traffic will be with perhaps five times the number of houses and cars as there are now. It's a developer's paradise and a resident's nightmare. But keep telling folks it can't get worse. People are so easy to fool.
That's one of the taglines the Big Four helped us with. We want you to think you are being provincial if you are only concerned about Johns Island.
We certainly don't want you to step back and ask questions such as: Why aren't Berkeley and Dorchester Counties (i.e. the region) kicking in any money? Why has the project never risen to a level where the state says it's needed? Why is the state only (reluctantly) kicking in a fraction of the money?
If you asked questions like these you would realize it's not a project of regional significance, so please don't ask these questions. You'll make us look bad.
Do you like that one? We are proud to say that we came up with that tagline. It was mainly to scare the folks on Kiawah and Seabrook into thinking we need more bridges off Johns Island and it's working.
If they took a moment they would realize that since the state initiated lane reversals on I-26 there have been zero problems evacuating the islands. Fortunately they are too busy playing golf to think about it much.
Every now and then some wiseacre tries to remind them that there is only a single two-lane bridge off Kiawah and that should concern them much more. That's where the bodies will be floating. We suggest you change the subject when that comes up. Perhaps talk about golf.
Even we have a hard time swallowing after we say this. Have you ever seen the humongous backups on the James Island Connector in the morning when it gets choked down to one lane on Calhoun Street? We have, and it makes the impact of the light at Maybank Highway and Fenwick Allee look like child's play.
Now imagine what the congestion will be like when there's a four lane expressway from North Charleston, West Ashley and Johns Island directly to Calhoun Street. It's best if you don't talk about this.
We actually don't say that in public, but our partners at the Big Four are salivating over all the money they will make on the project and the resulting rampant development on Johns Island.
Time for that new Gulfstream. Cha-ching!
At the end of the day, we'll need something like $2 billion of Charleston county taxpayer money for the project. That comes down to about $5,000 for every man, woman, and child living in the county.
That means that residents from other parts of the county who will never use the road will have to forgo a huge portion of the funds from the next half-cent sales tax to build this road of "regional significance".
We'll throw a few road projects to Mt Pleasant, Sullivan's Island, etc. and hope they don't realize they could have had many more road projects if they demanded their reasonable share. Like we said, we are good at fooling people.
Why? Because that's how we make the most money.
We know that the traffic congestion would be considerably reduced if we did two things. First, improve our public schools so that parents did not feel the need to drive their children to school or to send them to alternative schools. Second, provide affordable housing on Kiawah and Seabrook so that all those workers coming from places like North Charleston did not add to the traffic. But we won't make much money off those types of efforts.
Just imagine if we spent the $2 billion for this project on improving our schools and providing hundreds of affordable housing units at Freshfields. It would solve our traffic issues and greatly improve the island community. The thought of this just makes us shutter.
Why? Because it's become an ego thing. It's no longer about moving people around. People have staked their careers on this project and they are not going to back down now regardless of its extravagant cost.
But don't tell the detractors that. Tell them it will (temporarily) reduce commute times.
This website is a work of sarcasm and is not affiliated with the Facebook group Charlestonians for 526 or the Charleston Chamber of Commerce.
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