Zachary Anderson

I think that changing the regulations, or for that matter, the 6 month deviation from the regulations is a bad, bad idea. First, I believe that the traffic counts that you provided are grossly underestimated. From the online information from Berkeley county's traffic counts, the locations of traffic counts are not within a reasonable distance to the bridge. The Clements Ferry Rd counts are closer to 15000 vpd and I believe this to be more accurate. The 3000 vpd count is farther up SC 41 in the middle of the Francis Marion Forest, where population is almost none and traffic is very minimal. Living in Mt Pleasant, and up until this month my wife crossed that bridge twice a day, I can tell you that there are several subdivisions and a significant portion of the 66,000 residents of Mt Pleasant that are living near that bridge that use it to get to Interstate 526 to North Charleston via Clements Ferry Rd. This is also one of only 3 river crossings to get into/out of Mt. Pleasant. If it's closed twice an hour, people will choose to drive down the very busy and under construction US 17 to access 526, which will result in heavier traffic all over Mt Pleasant, not just SC 41. I have found references that indicate that this bridge needs to be opened by hand and takes quite a long time to open/close. This will delay many, many residents in the area and delay emergency access. Opening this bridge that often is honestly ridiculous, given the amount of times it has been opened in the recent past. ~50-60 times since 2005? http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20100812/PC1602/308129881 Needless to say, I am not looking forward to the traffic delays that will result of this temporary deviation and wish you would reconsider until a new bridge is built.