Pine Island neighbors worry new state park will bring dangerous traffic and overcrowding (2024)

LEXINGTON — The new state park planned for Lake Murray’s Pine Island is on schedule to open this fall, but neighbors are worried the island and surrounding neighborhoods will be overwhelmed with the influx of visitors.

Residents fear opening the island—— to the public will cause inconvenient and dangerous levels of traffic to the area.

They paint a picture of lines of cars waiting to enter the park that block roads, families being turned away at the gate after long drives due to overcrowding and residents unable to run errands due to the traffic.

To combat this, neighbors want the State Park system to implement a reservation system for visitors on opening day. But park system officials said they don’t think it’s necessary.

“There's no rationale for not doing it, given the location of the park, the amount of people that are going to use the park and the size of the park,” resident Rick Levitan said. “It doesn't make any sense to anybody, except the (state Parks, Recreation and Tourism department).”

Pine Island will have a reservation system in place on opening day for park facilities, but a reservation will not be required for visitors to enter the park, State Park Director Paul McCormack said.

“(Residents’) concept of a reservation system has always been if you don't have a reservation, you can't come,” McCormack said. “That's not the way we manage our reservation systems.”

The parks service will monitor crowds at the park to see if a reservation system may need to be put in place in the future, he said. The park’s scheduled opening will also give officials time to plan ahead of the busy season, he said.

But the residents don’t want to wait and see if reservations are needed.

“They want to wait and see how they want to operate it,” Levitan said. “They want to wait and see and it's a huge mistake.”

The lack of a reservation system to be in place on opening day negates the PRT’s previous commitment to operate the park as it was during its days as a private club, Levitan said.

In an October 2022 letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, PRT Director Duane Parrish told federal officials the future state park would be operated similarly to how it was during its time as a private park, including using a reservation system “consistent with best practice management management standards.”

The park service still plans to operate the island in a similar fashion to how it was run under private ownership and as indicated in the letter to FERC, McCormack said.

But Levitan also worries park staff and officials will not be prepared for the crowds because the park is so much smaller than others in the system — 27 acres compared to the hundreds of acres of other parks in the system.

Pine Island’s proximity to major population centers, and status as Lexington County’s first state park, may also bring bigger crowds than officials are planning for, he argued.

PRT doesn’t anticipate much more traffic to the island than what was there when it was a private club, McCormack said. The department is confident on-site staff will be able to handle any capacity concerns based on experience with other parks around the state, he said.

“We have traffic at a lot of our parks on busy weekends and routinely assist emergency services in getting in and out of parks as necessary to assist visitors or if we have facilities or anything like that that we need them at,” he said.

A traffic study done by athird party indicated some improvements could be made to surrounding roads, but no major work was needed and traffic would not overload the area’s streets, McCormack said.

But the study’s omission of nearby Collins Drive invalidates the findings, Levitan said.

PRT has passed along residents’ concerns about Collins Drive in the traffic study and are in talks with the state Department of Transportation to address any needed improvements, McCormack said.

The increase in traffic could also block emergency vehicles when responding to calls on and near the island, Levitan said, adding the island’s narrow causeway poses a concern, as well.

The April fire on the island which damaged the future park manager’s house demonstrated the difficulty of getting emergency vehicles onto the island, Levitan said.

“I mean, imagine if the park was open, and it was a Saturday in July?” he said. “What if it wasn't a fire, what if it was a heart attack? Cars would be lined up on the causeway and on River Road … That's our concern. If something happens to somebody, it's on (SCPRT). They can easily solve the problem.”

Staff at parks across the system work to make sure emergency services have easy access to the parks, McCormack said.

The park is working with contractors to repair damage and rebuild the home since the fire, he added. And park officials are hopeful the fire will not affect the planned opening in a few month's time.

Resident Elizabeth Moore feels like park service officials have been dismissive of residents' concerns throughout the process and the service’s plans to address capacity and traffic concerns have been disorganized, she said.

Moore is one of the neighbors who worries traffic will be frustrating for visitors and residents, and feels the state's current plans for the park— and lack of reservations— are not in line with initial commitments the department made for the park’s operation.

“The island is a treasure and I want to share it with whoever wants to come and see it, but I would like to make it a good experience for them and not a complete pain for me,” she said.

The park service has addressed some of the residents’ concerns, Levitan said.

“They have done some things that we appreciate,” he said. “I think they've listened to a couple of our suggestions.”

“If they would just have reservations from the start, we'd be fine,” the Lexington County resident added. “It's the only remaining issue.”

Residents have taken issue with the project from the start. When Dominion Energy acquired the island from SCE&G, the utility told residents the plot would remain a private park, he said.

But soon residents read in local news reports a state park was coming to their neighborhood.

Park officials have met with residents several times to try to address their concerns, McCormack said. Some concerns, including questions about operating hours and firework usage on the island, have already been addressed, he said.

“I think there's a lot of unknowns for these neighbors and they are, understandably, nervous about having a park nearby,” he said. “Most of them are not regular park users, so their vision of park visitors and how a park operates is a little bit different than the way they actually are."

For now, the state park system is soldiering ahead as planned.

"I think the only thing we're going to be able to do to alleviate (those concerns) is as we open this park to work to make sure that any and all the things that they are worried about don't become a reality,” McCormack said.