Responsible Growth
Transportation & Infrastructure | The Port | Density vs. Sprawl | Public Transit
Why it Matters
When the tri-county region’s population blew past 880,000 residents more than a decade earlier than expected, it was no longer a question of if Charleston will grow, but how it will grow. Will our growth be a source of shared strength and opportunity or of conflict and inequality? For the TCEOC, the answer is rooted in a thoughtful, measured approach to managing the present and future needs of our citizenship, including a civilian labor force that grew 3x as fast as the national average from 2018-2023, through informed leadership and responsible city planning regarding critical issues like transportation and infrastructure, the health and competitiveness of the Port of Charleston (our region’s economic engine), the redevelopment and densification of our urban cores as well as public transit initiatives to move our growing population from work to home and back again.
Transportation + Infrastructure
To move forward, we must be able to move.
If our region’s infrastructure is to keep pace with the rapid population growth, we must start prioritizing improvements to the area’s highways, bridges, and secondary roads. Projects like the anticipated Highway 17-Main Road flyover, which is slated for completion in late 2028, is a prime example. We also support strategies that organically lessen the burden on those roadways, initiatives like Lowcountry Rapid Transit and the Ashley River bicycle and pedestrian bridge.
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One of the Lowcountry’s most persistent challenges is flooding and water management. The region’s low elevation, coupled with decades of creek and marsh infill to support development, has long contributed to flooding concerns for local communities. Today, after years of planning, multiple drainage improvement projects are underway—with additional efforts planned—across the greater Charleston area. Among the most significant is the $75 million Low Battery Seawall Restoration Project, which is now nearing completion and marks an important milestone in the region’s broader resilience strategy.
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Air travel is a bright spot in the transportation narrative with the Charleston International Airport seeing a record-setting 6.2 million travelers in 2024 with four new gates scheduled to open beginning in 2026.
Our Port
South Carolina’s economic engine.
The Port of Charleston pumps nearly $87 billion into the state’s economy each year and supports more than 260,000 jobs statewide (1 in 9 jobs are linked to the port), making it hard to underestimate its impact on the South Carolina economy. It’s also a national and global leader for efficiency and production, serving more than 150 countries worldwide. Efficiency plus the Port of Charleston’s advantageous environmental position—short shipping lanes within two hours of open water and the one of the country's deepest harbors—means ships can spend minimal time in port, helping maintain the port’s competitive edge in today’s economy, which is vital to the overall economic health of our region.
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The opening of North Charleston’s Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal in 2021enabled the port to handle unprecedented levels of cargo amid ever-rising consumer demand. The 2024 purchase of the 280-acre waterfront site of the former WestRock paper mill will allow the port to double the size of its North Charleston Terminal, increasing competitiveness and connectedness to the global market.
Density vs. Sprawl
Cities are solutions.
Moving downtown is aspirational again—a symbol of success. Modern cities function like oases of convenience, where residents embrace dense urban landscapes as “walkable, bike-able, livable” spaces. But to serve up cities as solutions to regional growth, preservation and conservation must be addressed.
In the tri-county area, there are a handful of examples we can look to as models for maintaining quality of life by protecting the land and water. In 2014, for instance, Boeing partnered with the Lowcountry Land Trust (LLT) to preserve and restore 1,682 acres of wetlands and longleaf pine habitat, known as the Keystone Tract. Similarly, in 2015, the SC Ports Authority partnered with LOLT and the SC Coastal Conservation League to preserve the 425-acre French Quarter Creek area as part of the mitigation for their harbor deepening project.
Our region also contains numerous success stories, including Nexton in Summerville and East Edisto in lower Dorchester County, that demonstrate how high-density urban design can meet the demand for aspiring city dwellers while increasing municipal revenues and cost efficiencies for improved services. Other examples include North Charleston’s urban revitalization, which will generate several billion dollars in improvements over the next few decades and the dramatic transformation of the City of Charleston’s upper peninsula with an influx of high-tech digital companies as well as workforce and student housing. Major projects on the horizon include the landmark redevelopments of the harbor-front Union Pier property and Magnolia Landing.
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To build on these successes, we need to be strategic about work force housing initiatives and public transportation improvements, but we must also embrace the necessity of maintaining a strong sense of community by preserving the character, identity, and livability of our region, making public input critical to the process. At the TCEOC, we welcome the debate as much as we welcome the revitalization of our urban cores.
Public Transit
New thinking needed on public transit.
Even with all the necessary roadway improvements in place, we won’t be able to build ourselves out of all our future traffic woes. Not when our region’s geography significantly limits our capabilities. The Atlantic Ocean prevents a true urban loop system, and the region’s maze of rivers and marshlands require costly bridges to traverse, which is why the Lowcountry Rapid Transit program is such a critical step forward. The mass-transit project—the first in South Carolina—will transform our regional infrastructure and connect the tri-county area like never before. To fully realize its benefits, it’s paramount we buttress the project with target in-fill development and workforce housing opportunities.
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But we can’t stop there. Working proactively, we should borrow experience from other coastal communities that are successfully moving their citizens and study how opinion toward public transit has shifted in those areas, causing behavior change and public support for transit programs.