PCC participated as a key stakeholder in SCDOT's development of their 2022 Pedestrian & Bike Safety Action Plan. This Plan developed from PCC's successful advocacy to SCDOT in 2019 through our SC Livable Communities Alliance.
This final plan contains the Toolkit of street designs, called Countermeasures, that will most effectively bring down pedestrian and bike injuries and fatalities on SC roads. It also creates a prioritized list of those road segments needing engineering changes first, based on where the most crashes and future risk occur. In line with SCDOT's departmental directive for complete streets, "...transportation equity was factored into this plan with a weighted score based on % Households in Poverty when determining high-risk roadway segments across South Carolina."
SCDOT will use their Safety Program funding to pay for those projects at the top of the list, and SCDOT this year doubled their Ped/Bike Safety Program money (from $5Million to $10Million). SCDOT will work with MPO's and COG's (regional planning bodies) to implement projects further down the list.
SCDOT said recently they would start the development of the Regional Pedestrian and Bike plans by the end of 2022. These could theoretically be a starting place for funding the rest of that prioritized safety ranking list. Do we know this for sure? Charleston took a head start. Other areas are TBD or in progress.