After seeking feedback from residents in March regarding potential changes to U.S. Highway 80 through Tybee Island, the Georgia Department of Transportation presented some of its findings at a recent city council workshop.

GDOT showed residents a design that reduced portions of U.S. 80 from four lanes to two and eliminated the Lazaretto Creek merge. The purported benefits for GDOT’s recommended changes: a reduction in frequency and severity of crashes, reduced delays, improved safety and emergency response times. GDOT, ultimately, seeks to reconfigure the lanes, adding a center turn lane, pedestrian hybrid beacons, rectangular flashing beacons at multiple intersections, and a cycle track.

Reaction was mixed. Some in attendance at the March 28 meeting agreed with the changes; others thought they were a recipe for disaster. The westbound lanes of U.S. 80/SR 26 between Lazaretto Creek and Tybrisia Street already reduce from two lanes to one, causing long queues to get off the island, especially after holidays and events.

“During the open house, people kept saying, ‘What are you doing? Taking away a lane doesn’t seem like a very GDOT thing to do.’ We kept telling people, this is a safety project,” said Assistant State Traffic Engineer Samuel Harris. “It’s intended to be safe for all roadway users, bikers, pedestrians, vehicles. The goal is to enhance safety, but people still had concerns about the operational piece. This does not intend to have any major impacts on operations on the busiest days of the year.”

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Harris said that eliminating the Lazaretto Creek merge and reducing the lanes will actually improve operations for more than 90% of the year and will not significantly impact high-volume days like the Fourth of July. His modeling generated no significant operational issues, he said. By GDOT’s calculations taken July 4, 2023 and July 4 of this year, the potential elimination of the Lazaretto Creek merge would reduce travel time by 80% while existing conditions present a queue of 1,500 feet.

Although 71% of the 612 respondents to the March open house, online response form, mailed in and recorded public comments opposed the plan of reducing the lanes, GDOT remains confident that the project will prove successful.

Tybee Councilmam Tony Ploughe raised a few concerns at the September council meeting that he and a few residents voiced in March, including the possibility of traffic being pushed into residential areas.

Harris also mentioned that Tybee had done a “pilot” similar to what GDOT was proposing during the summer months when it was particularly busy, closing down the two middle lanes for emergency vehicles. That trial run had been successful, he said.

Ploughe countered, “We had a lot of traffic sitting from the first light out past the Lazaretto, and we’re willing to deal with that for safety and security and able to deal with that for the summer months, three months. But I’m concerned that as some point visitors will decide they won’t want to come to the island because there’s too much traffic.”

Ploughe also pushed back against reverse-angle parking after not being able to find a nearby community that implemented and kept it. Savannah, for example, experimented with it in 2009, but did not pursue it over the long-term, Ploughe reported.

“Your support for the project is very, very important,” Harris said. “I want to ask you guys to deliberate on it, and if it’s an absolute ‘hey, not what we want to do,’ we would have to go back and understand how we could move forward. A lot of the project can be unraveled, but there’s still minor things that could be done and I want to explore that. The intent is to make everybody safe.”

Destini Ambus is the general assignment reporter for Chatham County municipalities for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach her at dambus@gannett.com

TYBEE ISLAND, Ga. (WTOC) – Highway 80 has been a problem to those living on and visiting Tybee Island for some time now.

“I’ve lived here 11 years and this has always been a problem,” said Joey Goralczyk, a Tybee resident and owner of Breezy Riders Cabs.

There are two projects happening in that area: repaving highway 80 and adding height to stop flooding, and preparations for the bridges at Lazareto Creek and Bull River to be replaced.

Residents and local business owners have accepted highway 80 delays as part of living on an island.

Breezy Riders Cabs tell WTOC they’ve even had to go from three drivers to two because off-island runs have been limited by the road work.

“You either can not get on the island, or you can’t get off the island- if you think you’re going to make it to work when there’s an accident, you have no shot at all,” Goralczyk added.

Tuesday night, Tybee Island Mayor Jason Buelterman took to Facebook to let residents know that both the City Manager and Police Chief respond to a major traffic backup at the foot of one of the bridges, causing massive frustration. The post in full said, “We know there is a major traffic back up headed eastbound onto Tybee. Our City Manager and Police Chief are on site trying to address the issue now to get traffic moving even though this is GDOT’s jurisdiction. There is a work crew near the foot of the Lazaretto Creek Bridge which is causing the back up. Will provide more info as soon as we have it. This has been going on for the entire afternoon. People are missing meetings, late for appointments and having all kinds of issues as a result of this.”

“A D.O.T contractor was out there yesterday. We didn’t get any notification of that. So that caused a lot of problems. What we’d prefer is to be notified so we can work with them as best we can and try to notify the public,” Buelterman said.

Jill Nagel, the District Communications Officer with the Georgia Department of Transportation explained what exactly caused the back-up and apologized to drivers for the delays.

It was a miscommunication. We try to take time always to advise the public of what we’re doing and when we’re going to work in the roadways when there will be traffic delays. Things can slip through and we did not get notified, so we apologize to the public if they were delayed.”

Both Tybee and Georgia D.O.T. agreed that they are trying to work together to keep citizens informed about when they can expect delays.

“They only work at night and that is Sunday through Thursday night from seven p.m. to five a.m. so they won’t impede on weekend traffic or daytime traffic,” Nagel added.

According to Mayor Buelterman’s Facebook Wednesday- there is no timeline on the construction start date of the Bull River and Lazaretto Creek bridges replacement project and for the repaving work, crews are about two-thirds of the way finished on a 60 day contract and the city has asked for an expected completion date. That post read, “The work done yesterday that impacted traffic is complete. There are not expected to be any delays today. That work was boring work being done in preparation for the bridge replacement project. The crew went out overnight to complete the boring work. There is no timeline on the construction start date of the Bull River and Lazaretto Creek bridges replacement project. GDOT did not advise us of the work that backed up traffic yesterday. They have apologized and committed to ensuring we have a heads up on any future work that could impact traffic. As for the repaving work, they are about 2/3 finished on a 60 day contract. We have asked for an expected competition date. We will advise once we when we get a firm completion date.”

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