Charleston sits on a peninsula between the Ashley and Cooper rivers, and its highways are shaped by water. I-26 runs north from the peninsula through North Charleston toward Summerville and Columbia, and US 17 crosses the peninsula as the Crosstown, heading west over the Ashley River into West Ashley and east over the Cooper on the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge into Mount Pleasant. I-526, the Mark Clark Expressway, loops from West Ashley through North Charleston and Daniel Island to Mount Pleasant. Most of the region's growth has spread across those bridges into the suburbs, so commutes into the peninsula funnel onto a few crossings.
SC 61, Ashley River Road, follows the river past the old plantations, the James Island Expressway, SC 30, links the peninsula with James Island, and Folly Road, SC 171, runs south to Folly Beach. Maybank Highway is the main road onto Johns Island and is notoriously congested. The bridges and the Crosstown back up at rush hour, and a breakdown on the Ravenel Bridge or the Ashley River bridges is hard to escape, since there is nowhere to pull fully clear of traffic.
Charleston International Airport sits in North Charleston, sharing runways with Joint Base Charleston. CARTA buses serve the peninsula and the suburbs, and the College of Charleston, the Medical University of South Carolina and The Citadel draw heavy daily traffic downtown. Tour carriages and visitors slow the historic district's narrow streets, and a few downtown streets are still paved with cobblestones.
For a mobile mechanic, Charleston is a mix of tight historic streets and roomy suburbs. Downtown has narrow streets, garages and permit parking, while West Ashley, James Island and Daniel Island have driveways and garages. Tidal flooding on the peninsula affects where a car can safely sit, so the mechanic checks the tide and the forecast before planning a downtown repair.