Mayor Cogswell presented the City of Charleston’s final priorities for a county transportation sales tax (TST), telling the council the county estimate for the TST is approximately $4.2 billion and the city’s share is roughly half of that. He said the list prioritizes road safety, flood mitigation and pedestrian improvements across the city, naming projects on John’s Island (Maybank widening and related intersection work), River Road, Lockwood Drive and Haygood on the Peninsula, East Bay/Concord/Morrison for flooding relief, and Calhoun Corridor protections for the medical district.

Why it matters: council and staff said the TST funding will be the city’s primary near-term source for major road improvements. In the mayor’s words, the plan aims to “bring employees closer to jobs” and prioritize projects that reduce expensive long-term infrastructure costs.

Council members pressed staff on the data and allocations used to set priorities. The mayor and staff said the region’s Council of Governments (COG) provided commuting and origin–destination data showing significant inbound weekday flows — the Peninsula, for example, was cited as about 50,000 inbound and 9,000 outbound on a typical day, plus roughly 25,000 daily tourists — and that the county estimates roughly half of the sales-tax revenue would be generated by nonresidents. “So when you combine those, the county has a statistic that says almost half of the sales-tax funding that would be generated is funded by nonresidents,” the mayor said.

What passed: after the presentation and questions, a council member moved to forward the general priority list to the county and to return a final package for council review at the next meeting; that motion passed by voice vote.

What’s next: staff said they will validate pricing and finalize designs where possible, meet with adjacent municipalities (including Folly Beach and James Island districts) to coordinate priorities, and circulate the final package before the council’s next meeting for formal submission to the county.