A ‘dangerous’ Assembly Street divides downtown Columbia. How much will it take to fix it?
Columbia’s Main Street is half a mile from the Vista, but the city’s two major downtown entertainment districts may as well be worlds away.
For years, residents have asked for relief from the daunting task of crossing the six lanes of Assembly Street that separate the Vista and Main Street and divide downtown.
Fixing the pedestrian headache downtown has a $16 million estimated price tag, but just $3 million is currently available for the project. More than $600,000 of that is from the Richland County Transportation Committee, and $2,400,000 comes from a state transportation department program, according to a 2022 city document.
Now, state lawmakers and city leaders want to tap the state budget and Department of Transportation grant dollars to get the work off the ground.
“I think it’s one of the most dangerous intersections,” Columbia City Councilman Tyler Bailey said of Assembly and Gervais streets, the junction at which the state capitol sits.
Improving the intersection along with other points on Assembly Street is a council priority, Bailey said, but he believes the city will need state and potentially federal dollars to make the needed changes.
Last week, city leaders including Bailey and state Reps. Seth Rose and state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, both Columbia Democrats, met with the S.C. Department of Transportation and members of the Vista Guild and Main Street District, among others, to discuss how to finally move the needle on the long-awaited roadwork.
Rose said he hopes to tap the state budget and federal grant dollars controlled by the state Department of Transportation to close the funding gap.
In 2013, the University of South Carolina led a $4.6 million project to make similar pedestrian improvements on Assembly between Blossom and Pendleton streets. That work included widening medians, shortening crosswalks and adding more lighting to sidewalks. This next phase of work on Assembly Street would pick up where that project left off.
Columbia City Council members unanimously voted in February 2022 to pay $665,900 to the firm Mead & Hunt to conduct traffic studies and for preliminary design work for eventual improvements to Assembly Street between Lady and Pendleton streets.
Improved sidewalks and medians, pedestrian “bump-outs” and more efficient signal lights were all on the table as possible ways to make Assembly Street safer and easier to cross. The intersections at Lady, Gervais and Senate streets each would be improved for pedestrians as part of the project.
When the council approved that contract, council members were aware that the money to complete the entire vision might not come. “Based on the outcomes of the preliminary design and cost estimate, the City will prioritize the project areas to move forward to final design,” a city one-sheet detailing the project published in 2022 read.
Rose said Mead and Hunt has begun delivering the results of traffic and safety analyses conducted as part of that contract and is planning public input sessions for the project in March. Mead & Hunt did not immediately respond questions about the project from The State.
With the new momentum, Rose said that now is the time to revisit paying for some of the work with state dollars.
“We would love to have the intersection … be pedestrian friendly and to not create this barrier between the Vista and Main Street,” Rose said.
Rose has helped put state money toward a number of road projects in Columbia, including nearly a million toward a $5 million pedestrian overhaul of Five Points and $1.5 million for pedestrian fixes on Devine Street.
Work on the Five Points project is expected to begin after the district’s annual St. Pat’s festival this month. There is no timeline set for the Devine Street work, but Rose said he also plans to ask for another $1 million for that corridor in the next state budget. Rose is also pushing for state money and Department of Transportation assistance to enhance pedestrian safety around USC’s Williams-Brice Stadium.
Even if lawmakers are able to secure money for the Assembly Street improvements, Rose said construction wouldn’t be likely for another two years, as construction vendors are heavily booked across the state.
Harpootlian added that he agrees with Rose that state money could help move the Assembly Street project along, but he also wants more information on if the project could be done more incrementally with less money to make improvements sooner rather than later.
“I think we need to start with the easy stuff first,” Harpootlian said, explaining that he thinks adjustments to traffic lights and curb bump-outs could be a less expensive starting point.
Harpootlian said he hopes to have an answer to how much that work would cost by the end of February.
The Department of Transportation declined to answer specific questions about the Assembly Street project and about the degree to which the department is involved with the work, other than to share that “SCDOT continues to coordinate with local stakeholders to determine what improvements might be possible along this corridor.”
This story was originally published February 13, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
CORRECTION: This story previously misstated the amount of state money going toward the project. The error has been corrected.
