LAKELAND, Fla. — Even exterior of rush hour, the site visitors on South Florida Avenue close to downtown Lakeland buzzes by virtually consistently.
The city artery, which Lakeland’s Planning & Transportation Manager Chuck Barmby calls the “spine of the city,” connects the north facet of city to the south one.
But the backbone is buckling below the latest pressures of progress.
In explicit, a stretch of the hall simply south of downtown — from Ariana Street to Lime Street in a rising neighborhood referred to as Dixieland — is basically feeling that squeeze.
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Years in the past, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) labeled that span of S. Florida Ave. as a “non-compliant, unsafe roadway.” At the time, the span was 5 lanes vast. The lanes had been so slender they did not meet trendy requirements, and there was restricted area for pedestrians and cyclists within the quickly-developing neighborhood.
“We had been seeing quite a bit of important crashes. The speeds had been greater within the hall,” said Barmby. “You really started to see a lot of conflict — side by side vehicles, side-swipe crashes. We had instances where mirrors of vehicles were over the sidewalk, so it really became a hazard for pedestrians. The other thing we really started to see too was a significant increase in buildings being struck by cars.”
That set in motion a 2016 study and the temporary solution that’s now in place. Dubbed a road diet, in 2020 engineers narrowed S. Florida Ave. to three lanes and places concrete islands on the road’s edges, which provides businesses and pedestrians more of a buffer from the busy roadway.
“What’s out there right now is purely temporary,” stated Barmby. “The concrete islands are actually just sitting on top of the asphalt.”
The temporary solution, however, has increased travel times.
Now, the city is considering a variety of options and needs the public’s help devising a solution that will make S. Florida Ave. safer and more functional.
“Really, it’s a math problem,” Barmby defined. “We’ve only got 60 feet between building faces along the corridor, so it’s not like we have room to expand. We have to figure out the best way to use the land that we have and make it safer, so that we can accommodate the growth that we know is coming, but also make the overall network safer than certainly what it is today.”
Monday evening, all are invited to share their feedback during a public meeting that could form the hall’s future. It’s on the RP Funding Center from 5-7 p.m.
Additionally, an online survey will be open for at the very least one other week.
Barmby stated town fee will use the suggestions to pick out a pathway ahead. After extra analysis, the plan must be finalized, designed, funded, and constructed. Ultimately, that course of could take a couple of years.
Read extra in regards to the present highway weight-reduction plan here.
