Leaders say roundabout won’t come to Georgia Avenue

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - It’s one of the most traveled roads in Downtown North Augusta — but for many who live and work there, Georgia Avenue has become more dangerous.

Now, city leaders are making changes to slow traffic and shift the focus from cars — to people.

This comes a day after city leaders voted on an engineering company to do the work.

The city says it’s about turning Downtown North Augusta into a true destination — instead of just a shortcut to the river.

Now they are in the engineering phases, with construction being the next step.

Georgia Avenue was built to move cars — but now the city says they want it to move people.

“Slowing traffic and making it so you can push a baby stroller across the street and know you’re not going to get hit by a car, and I can’t guarantee that today,” Mayor Briton Williams says. “We don’t want you to run as fast as you can from here to the river because we’re now getting businesses, the type of businesses downtown that we that you can walk to and we’re having events, like third Thursday, and we want you to spend time in our downtown.”

The push to “slow down” comes after years of close calls — and some not so close.

“Last June, we had our facade replaced because in March someone hit a parked car and sent it through the front of our store,” Tia Harville, the owner of Grove Gourmet Market, explains.

Which is why drivers are being asked to take their foot off the gas.

“With the parking and people going so fast on Georgia Avenue, I feel like it’s definitely hindered business,” Harville says. “We get a lot of people that come in for the first time, and they don’t really know that we’re here because they’re just trying to get down George Avenue without hitting anybody that’s pulling out or a car sticking out.”

Now, North Augusta leaders are putting plans into motion.

“We are going to make the lanes not as wide,” Mayor Williams explains. “We are going to get rid of diagonal parking and go parallel parking because diagonal parking is very dangerous. There’ll be a median because medians are things that if there’s a median, your side that you tend to slow down.”

And Mayor Williams says the proposed roundabout at malfunction junction isn’t happening on his watch.

“Phase two of the roundabout... not going to happen while I’m mayor. We don’t have the money, and we don’t have the time to do it. But it’s just part of the plan that we asked them to do. We accepted the whole plan, but in the resolution it’s very stated, very clear that our priority in funding is phase one.”

And for the people that built their dreams on this street — they say change is welcome.

“It’s kind of like playing Frogger, getting across there. So, we’re looking forward to the changes,” Harville says.

With engineering now underway — construction could start by next summer; they hope to be done with it by 2028, before the Georgia Department of Transportation starts work on the 13th Street bridge.

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