Abbeville to eventually take over Charity, looks to improve safety

Charity Street runs through a key part of the city of Abbeville.
However, the roadway does not belong to the city, as it is state-owned. 
That will change when the city eventually takes over Charity as part of the state’s Road Transfer Program. It’s the program that brought the streets in the downtown area under the city’s umbrella in 2023.
“We are taking Charity from the state,” Mayor Roslyn White said during last Tuesday’s Abbeville City Council meeting, “and it will become a local road.”
Part of that process is looking at enhancing safety measures on Charity Street. Grant funding will help with that planning. The city council took a step on Tuesday to accept grant funding for planning and demonstrations. The council voted 4-1 to adopt a resolution authorizing White to execute and submit all necessary documents relative to the 2024 Safe Streets and Roads for All grant program.
“Part of the advanced planning before we take the road,” White said, “is looking at safety. How can we enhance some of the pedestrian, bicycle and vehicular safety along Charity? Especially knowing that we have over 80 children who go to J.H. Williams (Middle School), who bicycle and walk to school, and don’t really have a safe way to get there.”
White said being selected for the Safe Streets and Roads for All grant allows the city to plan appropriately. The grant is for $160,000, federal highway dollars, through the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“This will allow us to do some demonstration and design,” White said, “similar to what we did with downtown. We can test some concepts and figure out if there are some changes we want to make ahead of the road work that will be done on Charity Street when the state comes in to overlay the road.”
“The goal is to have a really good plan in place so that we know what we want, based on public input and feedback.”
No specific plans or timetables have been announced. 
Councilman Francis Plaisance, who rejoined the city council after winning a special election in March after previously serving from ‘06 to ‘22, represented the lone vote against the move on Tuesday. He said he is not opposed to enhancing safety but feels that the cost of taking over and then maintaining Charity Street well into the future may be too costly. 
“That concerns me about our kids and grandkids,” Plaisance said of who would be inheriting the costs.
The city council approved the Road Transfer Program, which includes Charity Street, in November 2023. 
“We don’t accept it until they (state) come in and fix the road,” White said. “At some point in the future, we will accept the road once they fix it. What we are doing is setting a standard in which we want the local road to be so that when they come in to fix it, on their dollar, they build it to the standard we require, which is a standard that holds personal safety above everything else.”