Weekend Traffic
By Dave Stormer
Weekend beach traffic has been a growing concern. Earlier this year, the engineering firm of Wilbur Smith & Associates was hired to conduct a traffic study to identify methods to enhance safety and better the traffic flow.
On Saturday, June 13rth, a non-holiday vacation weekend, electronic volume counts and speed measurements were taken. Also, turning movements were hand recorded from 9am to 12pm at several intersections along Center Street. The results of these measurements will be available later in the summer.
Electronic counts can provide data on the number and speed of vehicles, but cannot provide information on the average occupancy which is needed in order to estimate the number of people that come to the beach on weekends. To acquire the occupancy count Pat and I made observations of every tenth vehicle crossing the bridge from 9am until 12pm and again from 12:30pm to 2:30pm. Other observable demographics could also be useful to the City Administration and Public Safety, so in addition to the number of occupants, gender and age were estimated and recorded. The age variable was “under 30,” “30 to 60.” and “over 60.” The variable of “family” was added for vehicles carrying children. Families were not classified as to gender and age.
During the five hours of observation a total of 506 vehicles were observed to have 1054 occupants, or 2.08 per vehicle. This indicated that about 900 to 1000 vehicles cross the bridge each hour during the high volume time period when the Folly Road back up occurs North of the bridge. The electronic counts support this observation, showing that from 10am until 2pm, about 900 vehicles crossed the bridge each hour, and about 500 per hour from 2pm to 6pm. This means an estimated 6,000 vehicles carried approximately 12,000 people to the city/beach. With an estimated population of 2500 permanent residents, these routine vacation weekends increase the population by a factor of five.
While the data reveals much information, perhaps the most interesting are the age and gender variables. Of the cars counted, 52% had occupants under 30; 26% had occupants 30 to 60; 8% had occupants over 60; and 12% had families. Of the individual occupants observed, about 50% were under 30; 20% were 30 – 60; 7% were over 60; and 20% were families. Of the occupants, about 43% were males; 39% were females and 20% were families. Extrapolating, men outnumbered women by about 400,with about 270 of them in the 30 to 60 age group.
The large percentage of young people is consistent with street observations on weekends. With young people come some of the activities associated with youth – challenging legal and social norms and engaging in risk taking.
Additional information is anticipated from the contractor in early August with a more complete report and recommendations. I will ask that the report be placed on the City website for easy access.
If you have questions about the information obtained from the occupancy observations or suggestions for the traffic study, please call me – 478-6808.
Dave Stormer is a member of the Folly Beach City Council.
Note: The South Carolina Department of Transportation keeps a daily and hourly count of traffic on the Folly River Bridge and that information can viewed online on their website at: www.dot.state.www.dot.state.sc.us/
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