- April 18, 2024
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Residents of Palm Coast’s Cimmaron Drive have repeatedly told the City Council that they believe the roadway, which lacks sidewalks, is unsafe for pedestrians and bicyclists. Residents of some other roads have raised similar concerns. Now, the city government is looking for solutions.
The Palm Coast City Council on Feb. 1 voted 5-0 to spend $109,417 to have the engineering firm England-Thims & Miller conduct a "pedestrian accommodation feasibility study" on the city's residential collector roadways, including Cimmaron, to look for ways to make those roads safer for people traveling by foot or bicycle.
The city will first categorize the roads by features — for instance, swale types and right-of-way widths — that could affect opportunities for potential improvements like restriping or new sidewalks.
"Once we put them into categories, we will then analyze what options are available for each of those types," Palm Coast Stormwater and Engineering Director Carl Cote said at a Feb. 1 City Council meeting. "Some of them may have zero, some of them may have numerous ones. We will then assess the options for each type."
In the case of Cimmaron Drive, residents have pushed the city to add traffic calming measures to slow down speeding vehicle traffic.
Meetings between Cimmaron residents, city staff and the River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization in August 2021 pushed the City Council to set aside money in this year's budget for the feasibility study.
Approximately 50 miles of roadway in Palm Coast are currently classified by city staff as "residential collector roadways," generally defined as roadways that have residential driveways and also connect to arterial roadways on both ends, or, in a few cases (Cimmaron Drive among them), on one end.
The city defines arterial roadways as those without residential driveway access and generally with a speed limit of 35 mph or higher. They are usually labeled a parkway, boulevard, or drive in Palm Coast.
This latest initiative to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety isn't unprecedented in Palm Coast: The city had created a "Bicycle-Pedestrian Master Plan" in 2008, identifying roads that needed improvement and planning a path system to connect certain schools, parks and commercial areas.
Some of it has been hard to implement: Challenges have included retrofitting existing road rights-of-way, installing paths without impacting the function of stormwater system features like ditches or swales, and building paths that meet ADA requirements, according to a city staff document.
After the city joined the River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization in 2014, the TPO in 2017 studied the safety of the county's middle and elementary school walking and bicycling zones — a 2-mile radius around each middle school, and a 1-mile radius around each elementary school.
For the current study, Cote said, the city will hold a public meeting for additional input on how to rate and prioritize residential collector roadways for improvements.
"Some of those criteria may be the number of homes that it serves, it many be the speed of the roadway, it may be the proximity to schools — all of those factors and others may be involved in how we would prioritize moving this program forward," Cote said.
Two proposed developments may bring almost 400 new homes to the western side of Palm Coast. The Palm Coast City Council voted to approve the proposed final plat development orders for both developments during a Feb. 1 council meeting.
The northernmost of the two developments would be called The Trails, and would add 274 townhouse lots to 188 acres of land on the west side of Belle Terre Parkway north of Belle Terre Elementary School and across from Palm Coast Fire Station No. 23.
Much of the land has already been cleared — lumber from the trees there was sold off to a paper mill — and construction on the infrastructure began in May 2021 and is approximately 80% complete, according to city staff.
The city's Planning and Land Development Regulation Board approved a subdivision master plan for The Trails in August 2020.
The development, which will be gated, is part of the Palm Coast Park Development of Regional Impact.
The City Council approved the final plat with a 4-1 vote Feb. 1, with Councilman Eddie Branquinho dissenting.
The other development, known as Whiteview Village, would add 121 single-family homes in the first phase of development on 97 acres on the southwest corner of the intersection of Pine Lakes Parkway and White Mill Drive, north of Whiteview Parkway, as part of the Whiteview Master Planned Development. A second, later phase would also add another 81 single-family homes, according to city staff.
That community will also be gated.
The City Council had approved the Whiteview MPD in September 2018, and the city issued a site development permit for the property in April 2021.
The City Council approved the final plat development order with a 5-0 vote Feb. 1.
