About

The Rethink Folly Road Complete Streets corridor study — the guiding document for revitalizing Folly Road — was adopted in February 2016. 

It was developed through a collaboration between BCDCOG, CARTA, City of Charleston, City of Folly Beach, Charleston County, SCDOT, and Town of James Island. The purpose of the study was to identify the opportunities and explore the potential to transform the Folly Road corridor into a safer multimodal corridor.

A series of public engagement activities were completed in 2015.

• A week-long public design charrette
• Community meetings provided opportunities for group brainstorming and input
• An open studio allowed community members to have one-on-one conversations with members of the planning team as draft ideas were being explored.
• Surveys and keypad polling
• Public website (via MindMixer)
• Multi-jurisdictional steering committee
• Community open house

The feedback informed design concepts and established the following 5 guideposts for the Folly Road corridor:

1. SAFER
   • Building continuous sidewalks, frequent crosswalks, and protected bikeways
   • Using slower, safer "design speeds"
   • Preserving evacuation routes
2. CONNECTED
   • Making it more convenient to reach the beach
   • Upgrading transit by making it faster and more frequent, adding covered shelters, and employing modern technology
   • Creating new connections between adjacent properties and to and from Folly Road
   • Adding cross-access easements, new street network segments and pedestrian paths to connect Folly Road, commercial parcels, and surrounding neighborhoods
3. GREEN
   • Modernizing stormwater infrastructure with creative, sustainable, and memorable designs
   • Increasing tree canopy through real street trees in the right of way
   • Introducing landscaped medians and range of public green spaces
4. VALUABLE
   • Contributing to property values and daily life
   • Improving business conditions with better building designs that look good and encourage walking
   • Making possible gradual change and incremental development
5. SYNCED
   • Optimizing traffic signal timing with modernized software
   • Sharing costs and responsibilities
   • Creating a joint design review body
   • Appointing a project manager to oversee the whole suite of Folly Road improvements

Implementation of the Folly Road vision will require coordination among all partner agencies, as documented in their shared Operating Agreement.