SUMTER, S.C. — Improving safety in Sumter is the top priority in a new transportation plan. There is a 30-day window for residents to provide feedback on the document, which looks at potential improvement projects that might happen stretching out to 2050.
Whether you’re walking or driving around Sumter, your feedback is wanted.
“The intersection of Calhoun and Guingard is incredibly dangerous,” Sumter resident Charlie Walton shares. “Lots of wrecks occur there.”
Walton says a few different places come to mind when he thinks of dangerous intersections, which is part of what Sumter hopes to improve based on its long range transportation study. Kyle Kelly is a senior planner who is a part of the Sumter Urban Area Transportation Study’s (SUATS) Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO).
“Across the country if you are a community that has more than 50,000 people, the Federal Department of Transportation designates you as an MPO. And the federal government provides money to plan for the transportation future of that urban area,” Kelly details. “SUATS is the smallest of the MPOs in the state of South Carolina. There are 11 and we are smallest, but we have about 92,000 people in our MPO.”
Kelly has been helping draft a plan, which is now complete. The nearly 200-page-document combines data like the number of crashes at main intersections with community feedback collected through surveys to identify potential projects that Sumter can direct transportation funding to over the next 26 years.
“Congestion mitigation is not as big of a concern in Sumter as it is in a place like Greenville or Columbia or Atlanta or Charlotte,” Kelly says. “So, we want to focus on safety as a priority because that is something that we can easily measure, we can easily contribute in a way that you know Sumter can't when when you're looking at places like malfunction junction in Columbia or you know the the area around the airport in Charleston where there's a lot of congestion steps that you can take.”
The area includes all of the city of Sumter, and a large part of the county.
The plan does not focus on maintenance like patching potholes or repaving roads, Kelly explains, “because there's other money and there's other people working on that issue.”
“They want us to spend the money on relieving congestion, improving safety in specific locations, you know, making roadways, designs better for all modes of users because that's what that money's meant for,” Kelly continues. “And it's a small part of a whole pot. So we don't want to diffuse it by throwing it into the mix of all the other dollars that are going.”
There is a public comment section open now, where residents can view the draft of the plan and provide feedback until Nov. 17. Kelly says feedback is welcome from all Sumterites, like Shi Thomas.
“We don't have a lot of sidewalks as far as various cities,” Thomas says. “So like walking on the side of the road, trying to get where you need to go. That's very dangerous.”
“They probably should be audacious and start looking at some public transportation that’s all electric,” Walton suggests. “I don’t know if they want to all-electric trolley cars, something like that.”
To view the plan, you can visit SumterSC.gov. You can also stop by Kelly’s office in the Liberty Center to see hard copies of the plan.
Then, you can provide feedback through the following methods:
- By Mail: Mail comments to the attention of "SUATS" at PO Box 1449, Sumter, SC 29151
- By Email: Email comments to kkelly@sumtersc.gov
- By Phone: Call the Sumter City-County Planning Department at 803-774-1660
- In Person: Visit the Sumter City-County Planning Department at 12 W. Liberty Street, 29150
“We have a chance to incorporate additional feedback and any red flags people want to throw in that they know, something that we missed in the development of the plan,” Kelly shares. “That's our biggest priority now.”
After that window closes, Kelly says a “technical committee of subject matter experts” from the community, Columbia, and the state Department of Transportation will review the final draft, along with the feedback.
Next, the policy committee made up of city and county elected officials, the planning commission’s chairman, representatives from Sumter’s economic development department and members of the state legislative delegation will review the final draft on Nov. 28, Kelly explains.