The Left Hand Turn at Fire Station #4
by Don Moniak

February 13, 2023

Since September 2022, Aiken city officials have endorsed a proposed shopping center with 339 parking spaces, anchored by an unknown grocery store. Located along Silver Bluff Road, the shopping center will be bounded to the south by the Village at Woodside, face a residential neighborhood, Pin Oak Village, to the west, back up to Woodside Plantation to the east, and abut Aiken Public Safety’s Fire Station Number Four to the north.

A traffic signal at Pascalis Place and Silver Bluff Road, adjacent to the fire station, is proposed by the developer to manage the expected increased traffic. Aiken Public Safety fire crews will be able to control the traffic light during emergencies. According to city officials and the developer, a safety issue already exists at the station—a difficult left-hand turn during busy traffic periods. During a public meeting on January 9, 2023, Aiken Mayor Rick Osbon suggested the City of Aiken could not improve safety at the Fire Station unless the shopping center is developed.

The Access Agreement

Nearly three months after approving a new six-acre shopping center development on Silver Bluff Road, Aiken City Council will likely approve another piece of the development. On the agenda for Council’s February 13, 2023, meeting is “Second Reading of an Ordinance Authorizing the City of Aiken to Enter Into an Agreement with Peach Properties, Inc.”

The agreement will grant the project’s main developer, Peach Properties of Columbia, “a nonexclusive easement for access to and from the proposed shopping center property to access a signalized intersection at Silver Bluff Road and Pascalis Place,” through Aiken Department of Public Safety’s Fire Station Number Four. The station houses the closest engine and staff for a large area that includes unincorporated parts of Aiken County such as the Creekside neighborhood and Richardson Lake Road.

A new traffic signal is necessary due to the further anticipated traffic increase. The developer’s proposal is for a traffic signal at the junction of the existing fire station entrance, Silver Bluff Road, and Pascalis Place; with control of the signal from the fire station during emergency calls. Although the developers claimed a traffic study was underway as far back as September 13, 2022, no such study or even preliminary data has been disclosed.

With the granting of the easement, the entranceway to the fire station will also accomodate customers exiting and entering the shopping center. The traffic study that is a stated condition for final approval of the shopping center has yet to be completed, so there are no estimates on traffic volume on Silver Bluff Road and how it could impact emergency response times from the fire station.

Even without the shopping center, increased traffic from the past two decades of development on Silver Bluff Road, involving hundreds of new homes at Pin Oak Village, Colleton Place, and Village at Woodside, has already contriburted to an existing safety issue at Fire Station Number Four.

An Existing Safety Issue

During Aiken City Council’s first reading of the ordinance authorizing the development, on September 26, 2022, Aiken resident Preston Rahe (2) identified among his many concerns : “increased traffic will make emergency response slower and more difficult.” Sentiments about increased traffic were also raised by numerous other speakers.

Peach Properties representative Brad Shell spoke soon after, and assured City Council this was not the case:

“In addition, a traffic light is being proposed at the intersection of Pascalis (Place) and Silver Bluff (Road) near the Fire Station. Currently that intersection without a traffic signal performs poorly from a DOT perspective at certain times of the day, particularly if one is trying to make a left turn. With a traffic signal there,that problem would be alleviated. At times a left turn out of the Fire Station, particularly at peak hours, is difficult. With the traffic signal, the Fire Station would have the ability to control the signal to stop all traffic to allow them to get out and go quickly to emergency calls.”

City Councilman Ed Girardeau later echoed Baldwin’s assertion, stating:

” There are positives. The traffic signal for Pascalis getting out to the left is a positive. For the Fire Station to be able to flip a switch and turn the traffic signal on and get out of the station and onto Silver Bluff is a positive one.” 

Shell and Girardeau did not acknowledge the probability of traffic backing up between the proposed light and the fire station exit, whether due to an existing red light or a red light triggered from the station. How will fire station personnel control traffic stuck between the light and the fire station?

An emergency traffic signal exists at APS Station 3 on West Richland Avenue in North Aiken, but this signal is directly in front of the station’s exit. (3)

Unlike the Richland Avenue emergency traffic signal, the Silver Bluff traffic signal will not be at the station’s exit, and an emergency signal is not planned. The distance from Fire Station #4 exit to the probable stopping point at the new traffic signal is at least 65 feet, and 105 feet from the signal itself. With an average car length of 15 feet, more than five vehicles could occupy south bound travel and turn lanes on Silver Bluff, and obstruct an emergency responder making a left turn.

“Seconds Count.”

These issues were raised again during City Council’s first reading of the fire station easement ordinance on January 9, 2023, when Preston Rahe stated:

“The addition of a traffic light at Pascalis Place creates a new hazard to vehicles  leaving the fire station. A steady stream of shopping center customers entering and leaving the center significantly increases the risk of an accident between an emergency vehicle and a civilian vehicle. Even if the traffic light is controlled by the fire station, it is not at the fire station, it is 105 feet away. An emergency vehicle that leaves the fire station may be blocked from turning by cars already stopped at that traffic light.”

Aiken resident John Veldman added, among his many points:

“A safer design would place the signal in front of APS Station 4, rather than the proposed design which features a signal 100 feet away. Placing the light in front of APS Station 4, would eliminate the moving vehicles that our Public Safety Officers would have to deal with as they respond to an emergency where seconds count.”

Peach Properties representative Brad Shaw countered by stating the fire station will have “total control” of the intersection, while still admitting the existing situation is often unsafe.

“The signal allows the fire station to have total control over that light over the entire intersection actually so they can stop traffic in all four ways to get out. Right now I believe they have a tough time making a left-hand turn at busy hours, and this will certainly enable them to control traffic.”

But the “total control” contention was not entirely supported by Aiken Public Safety Director Charles Barranco, who only acknowledged the proposal would be a “better situation” than the current scenario. The ideal safety arrangement has yet to be defined by city officials.

The following dialogue, which can be viewed in its entirety here, occurred after Aiken Mayor asked Chief Barranco to address the public safety concerns:

Mayor Osbon: “Obviously there’s a lot of comments of potential stacking at the light. I know this is something that your staff and you have looked at it.  I mean you feel comfortable, this is something you’re endorsing?”

Chief Barranco: “Having control of the intersection in all directions, and our emergency response vehicles have lights and siren on them as well, we believe it’s a better situation than what we currently have as far as accessing Silver Bluff Road in general.” 

Don Moniak: “What is the ideal situation then, safety wise? What would be ideal there? If the developer wasn’t coming, what would be the solution for the traffic on Silver Bluff Road?”

Mayor Osbon: “What would be the ideal?  I don’t think we have the budget to do the intersection, so this is  a solution of the developer.” 

In the absence of the major shopping center development, the City of Aiken is not even contemplating any improvements to mitigate an acknowledged, existing safety issue—the increasingly difficult left turn from Fire Station Four onto Silver Bluff Road.

The City of Aiken’s strategy for improving safety is essentially to first authorize an increase in vehicle traffic, and then rely upon the developers to solve the problem they are creating, even if that solution is far less than ideal. The City’s planning process appears strongly biased towards accommodating the desires of developers, not public safety needs.

Footnotes:

(1) All aerial photographs are from the Aiken County real property information and maps database.

(2) Edward Preston Rahe is one of two plaintiffs, along with John Veldman, in an appeal filed against the City of Aiken contesting the approval of the ordinances authorizing annexation of property for the proposed shopping center, and the Village at Woodside’s amended concept plan for the property.

Disclosure: Don Moniak is an independent researcher under contract to assist with the appeal. This article is not a part of that contract.

(3) The effectiveness of the Station Three emergency signal is compromised by two factors:
a. West Richland Avenue is a 45 mph zone where drivers frequently exceed 50 mph.
b. The light is only 450 feet west of a double traffic light at the intersections of Gregg Avenue and Summit Drive, at the top of a hill. Drivers travelling west bound are prone to speeding over the hill to beat the red light, and the fire station awaits 450 feet below the light.

(4) The January 9, 2023, first reading occurred from minutes 56:50 to and can be seen in the archived live stream on the City of Aiken’s You Tube channel.