Mount Pleasant, CCSD collaborate to improve crosswalk safety at Lucy Beckham High School

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (WCIV) — Mount Pleasant town leaders and Charleston County School District (CCSD) officials are looking for ways to make a crosswalk at Lucy Beckham High School safer.

Both said after hearing about a student who was hit and injured by a car in this crosswalk in March, they started working together to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

News 4 has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the incident report from the Mount Pleasant Police Department.

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A busy crosswalk on Whipple Road connects the high school to its baseball field.

CCSD officials said they jumped into action after learning one of their students was hit.

“We always initiate an after-action review to determine exactly what happened and to see if there's anything we can do to potentially improve the situation, in an effort to avoid that incident from happening again in the future,” said Michael Redenbach, executive director of security and emergency management for CCSD.

After the review, Reidenbach said the district and the town began brainstorming solutions. The number one thing they came up with was the need for additional lighting.

“Not only around the street but on our property near the street with the hopes that additional lighting on our property can perhaps spray additional light out into the sidewalks and the street area,” he said.

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Town Council members are also talking about adding streetlights up and down Whipple Road to help with nighttime traffic.

In addition, Councilman Daniel Brownstein thinks overgrown trees and bushes are part of the problem.

“I think we're going to start to trim some of that vegetation back, as well to open up the views and hopefully make it more apparent that there's somebody waiting to cross the street,” Brownstein said.

He said these kinds of street safety concerns in Mount Pleasant aren’t just limited to Whipple Road.

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“It's something that we're unfortunately seeing all over town is that people are just paying less and less attention while they're driving,” Brownstein said.

He doesn’t have an exact timeline for when these measures will be taken but expects unanimous support from the town.

News 4 also spoke with CCSD Board Member Leah Whatley who said she first learned about the incident when Brownstein spoke in public comment. Whatley says she’s confident if it came to a vote, the board would approve any increased safety measures for the area.