You're merging wrong on Maybank Highway

Leaving Johns Island on Maybank Highway, the outbound side merges from two lanes into one near River Road and stays one lane all the way to the Stono River bridge. At busy hours, as our reel shows, everyone files politely into the lane that keeps going, the ending lane sits nearly empty, and the line reaches back past River Road. Manners: excellent. Traffic: not.

The fix costs nothing and needs no new asphalt. When traffic is backed up, use both lanes all the way to the merge point, then take turns, one car from each lane, like the teeth of a zipper. The Minnesota Department of Transportation, which teaches the zipper merge for its work-zone lane closures, says it cuts the overall length of a backup by as much as 40 percent and narrows the gap in speed between the two lanes. Its own page tells drivers not to worry about being "Minnesota nice." Lowcountry nice can stand down too.

Here's the math. The merge point lets through the same number of cars no matter which lane they waited in. Merging early doesn't add a single car to that count. It just parks every waiting car in one lane instead of two, so the same cars make a line about twice as long, and a longer line spills back into the intersections behind it. Merging early isn't virtue. It's just a longer line.

And no, the driver who rides the open lane to the merge point and takes a turn isn't cutting. That driver is doing it right. MnDOT's one exception: when traffic is moving at speed and there's no backup, move over early. The zipper is for slow, stacked traffic, not a license to race to the front.

The lasting fix is a fourth lane. Charleston County is designing a second outbound lane on Maybank Highway from River Road to the Stono River bridge, off Johns Island and onto James Island. When it's done, that stretch gets two travel lanes each way, plus turn lanes at Fenwick Hall Allee and a left-turn lane into Indigo Grove. The County's project page lists it in design: final plans due shortly, utility coordination and environmental permits underway, the bid package still pending. Live 5 reported in September that construction should start early next year and finish in fall 2027, at a little over $10 million. Until then, zip.

On the Nov. 3 ballot (we report it, you decide it): Charleston County's half-cent transportation sales tax, which would collect up to $4.25 billion over no more than 25 years, with $2.702 billion for roads, $858 million for transit and $690 million for greenbelts. Its featured road projects include the Maybank Highway southern pitchfork, which the County's project list puts at $65 million. Its intersection projects include Maybank Highway at Riverland Drive on James Island ($6 million) and Main Road at Mary Ann Point ($5 million), and its road-elevation program names Seabrook Island Road. A second question asks voters to allow up to $300 million in bonds paid from the tax. The County says the current half-cent tax, from 2004, is expected to run out in 2027.

What isn't coming: the Mark Clark Expressway extension. In January, County officials said it is canceled and its remaining money would go to nine road projects already approved, Maybank Highway's fourth lane among them. So some of the money for the expressway that never got built is going to the lane that will.

Until that lane opens: both lanes to the point, then one goes, one goes. Don't be a Betty Blocker. Send this to the worst merger you know.

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