FOLLY BEACH, S.C. (WCBD) – The Arctic Avenue Plan officially started being discussed in 2021, and on Thursday, there will be a public meeting where community members can give their input about the changes they’d like to see made to Arctic Avenue.

The City of Folly Beach is discussing plans to make several improvements to one of the city’s most active two-lane roads.

“What our proposal is saying, ‘Hey, lets make this officially a one-lane, one-way street with parking on one side and a pedestrian path on the other,’” Folly Beach Mayor Tim Goodwin said. “So people can have a place to walk, place to park and you still have a place wide enough to safely go down the street in your vehicle.”

Thursday’s public input meeting will be the second after the first one was held in June earlier this year.

Goodwin says consultants who were hired to carry out this project will show neighbors the two alternatives they’ve come up with for the city’s commercial and residential districts.

“They’ll show them all the drawings and proposed parking areas and non-parking areas and walking paths and all that,” he said. “Then, they’ll get feedback from the citizens like they did the first time.”

All that feedback will be considered before a formal proposal is presented to city administrators and city council.

“Then what we have to do is we have to take that and turn it into the Department of Transportation (DOT) for their approval,” Goodwin said. :It could take two years to be approved, just depends on how fast DOT wants to work.”

Katie Zimmerman with Charleston Moves says the development process leading up to this point has been phenomenal and she’s optimistic because the time and attention to detail the design team has put in.

“I mean a lot of the time,” Zimmerman said, “with a lot of these projects, there are no walking audits that are done, and they’ve done two. So, they’re really taking their time and collecting as much data and going out and seeing the user experience, which is really admirable.”

Goodwin says no matter which alternative is chosen, or how long it takes to implement the changes, he just wants to make sure it’s what’s best for everyone.

“For something like this that’s going to be around for a long time hopefully,” he said, “it takes a while to get it right because you definitely want to get it right the first time.”

The public input meeting will start at 5:00 p.m. Thursday at Folly Beach City Hall.