- April 19, 2024
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Palm Coast could be moving closer to developing a plan to make its busy residential roads safer for pedestrians and bicyclists.
At a City Council workshop on Tuesday, Aug. 10, Senior Planner Jose Papa and Carl Cote, director of stormwater and engineering, recommended a study to determine a comprehensive plan to make the 50 miles of residential collector roads in the city safer for cyclists and walkeers.
The staff presentation followed a Cimmaron Drive neighborhood meeting held a week earlier.
The collector roads are typically 20 feet wide and pose many challenges including the open swale systems which occupy space in the right of ways.
Papa said Palm Coast was originally designed as a car-centric community.
"Everything leads out to residential collectors like Cimmaron," he said. "It's a system we inherited from ITT, a system we have to retrofit."
Cote said options include advisory shoulders, which are in a pilot phase; adding crosswalks; converting some streets into one-way roads, which would provide room for sidewalks or bike and walking paths; and replacing swale systems with another stormwater option.
Advisory shoulders share the road with cars so when one car is on the road it yields the shoulder to pedestrians, but when two cars are on the road while pedestrians or cyclists are using the shoulder, one car would have to stop to allow the other car to proceed.
Cote said the goal is to include funds for the study in the upcoming budget with a final report presented to the Council by next June. Papa and Cote said staff will look into finding outside funding sources such as community development block grants to assist in carrying out a master plan.
Mayor David Alfin asked what can be done in advance of the study to embrace bicycle and pedestrian safety on the residential roads.
Cote said the city can add signage and speed trailers, both of which have been done for Cimmaron Drive. He said city staff has also reached out to the Sheriff’s Office to request additional enforcement and staff is looking into how to provide a safer path from Cimmaron Drive to Palm Harbor Parkway’s sidewalks.
“We’ll start implementing what we can,” Cote said.
