Residents urge Beaufort County to drop plan to divert Sea Island Parkway traffic onto Sunset and Miller drives

Dozens of residents from Ladies Island told Beaufort County Council on Feb. 10 they oppose a county project that would reroute Sea Island Parkway traffic through Sunset Boulevard and Miller Drive and build a roughly 15-foot roundabout at the Sunset/Miller intersection.

The speakers said the proposal, part of a larger list of projects funded by the county referendum, would turn quiet residential streets into de facto highways, remove mature canopy trees, and increase crash risk for children, older residents and people with disabilities. Several said they prefer lower-cost traffic calming such as additional stop signs or speed humps.

Why it matters: The Sunset/Miller concept has been discussed for years as part of a broader island transportation plan tied to a sales-tax-funded capital program. Residents said the plan would directly affect property frontages, school-bus stops and daily pedestrian movement, and they asked councilors to reallocate the money to other projects.

What residents said and asked

- Carrie Majors, a St. Helena Island resident who spoke in favor of increased youth services, was the first commenter at the meeting. After public speakers began on the Sunset/Miller item, 10 people were called from the signup list and many more remained in the audience.

- Sean Darby, who said he lives at 9 Miller Drive, told council: “Please scrap it for all of us.” He said adding turn lanes to the nearby 21/802 intersection would relieve congestion without sending through traffic into residential streets. (public comment)

- Multiple speakers who live on Sunset Boulevard — including Thomas Florio Jr., Robert Detreville, Kevin Cupia, Jan Malinowski, Susan Hogue and others — described fatal and near-fatal crashes on the street and urged stop signs or speed humps instead of a roundabout or a plan to divert highway traffic onto neighborhood streets. Several speakers said their petition gathered about 50–60 signatures opposing the current plan and delivered it to the clerk.

- Writers and commenters also raised tree loss and loss of the street’s canopy as a major quality-of-life concern for residents who described Sunset Boulevard as a “canopy street.”

Context and next steps

Council staff said the project page remains open for online comments through Feb. 14; council also told attendees the project will be discussed again at a Public Facilities Committee meeting (council referenced Feb. 17 during the meeting and later also referenced Feb. 18). County staff said the full project record and comment process would continue at that committee meeting.

What the county has said about alternatives

Speakers repeatedly urged the council to pursue simpler, lower-cost measures (stop signs, speed humps, additional signage and enforcement) before pursuing a design that would reroute highway traffic through residential blocks. Several speakers described the neighborhood as a school-bus and pedestrian route and said the proposed redesign would remove an existing stop sign and replace it with the circle.

Meeting context

The public-comment segment on Sunset/Miller ran for the majority of the meeting’s public-comment time; the clerk noted a 30-minute public-comment block limited to three minutes per speaker and that staff would call speakers in signup order. At least a dozen residents spoke specifically on the Sunset/Miller plan at the Feb. 10 meeting.

Ending: Council members did not take a formal vote on the design during the meeting; staff directed that comments be added to the project record and provided the date for the upcoming committee update.