The North Bridge that connects West Ashley to North Charleston to be free of walkers, bicyclists CARTA offering free ride for everyone

The North Bridge that connects West Ashley to North Charleston has been a real safety concern in the last few years since the number of walkers and bicyclists have drastically increased.

The North Bridge is pretty important part for the traffic in the area as it serves thousands of daily commuters every day. The bridge has numerous lanes for traffic, but it lacks sidewalks and/or bicycle lanes.

Since the number of walkers and bicyclists drastically increased over the years, there have been numerous accidents with pedestrians involved on the bridge with some of them resulting with fatalities.

That’s why CARTA is starting a new initiative to curb the number of crashes involving those on foot.

According to the latest information, CARTA is offering free ride for everyone. What everyone is asked to do is just wait for the bus on either side of it to hop on.

Since many people are expected to use the free service, CARTA will increase the number of buses on the route and there will be bus on every half an hour from now on.

If you have to cross the bridge, leaders say it can get busy. Especially during the morning and afternoon commutes.

The latest CARTA decision is coming as an effort to reduce the accidents that happen on the bridge. The last fatal accident took place in April when a cyclist was hit by vehicle and died.

“We’ve had a lot of calls to make that area safer and so CARTA again doing its part,” said Chairman of CARTA Mike Seekings. “That passage across for bicyclists to pedestrians is literally taking their life into their own hands to get from West Ashley to North Charleston.”