No to lowering speed limits, but Palm Coast will consider ‘bumps’

The Palm Coast City Council is not interested in spending $1.6 million to lower citywide speed limits from 30 to 40 mph — it would cost that much to change all the signs — and is wary of certain “traffic calming” devices, whether speed bumps. » or traffic islands.

But he will consider a plan that would leave it up to residents to decide whether they want speed bumps in their neighborhoods. Residents in favor of such calming devices would have to muster majorities to convince the city that their neighborhood deserves bumps. These criteria would be applied citywide, even though the city’s fire chief has warned against them.

“Anything that calms traffic calms emergency responses,” Palm Coast Fire Chief Kyle Berryhill said. “So when we talk about traffic calming options, we think speed limits and appropriate speeds are certainly best practices for safety.” Each traffic speed bump could delay a response by 10 seconds, multiplied by thousands of responses.

Sheriff Rick Staly said he is not opposed to longer, gentler-on-vehicle speed bumps (as opposed to speed bumps) or lower speed limits. But he said any approach the city takes must be comprehensive. “For this to be effective, it has to be a combination of traffic engineering, education and enforcement,” Staly said today. “One without the other will not result in a significant reduction. All it does is allow us to write more tickets or arrest more people.

The city has commissioned a traffic study on all of its roads. The study sought to determine whether speed limits should be lowered citywide, with a focus on Florida Park Drive and Cimmaron Drive. The city speed limit set by law is 30 mph, with lower limits where warranted.

The study took data from 48 speed zones and 109 locations. Of these, 17 speed zones met the condition of a 25 mph limit. The lowering of speed limits should be uniform. The city will not lower them in some places and not others.

Residential roads are neighborhood roads located in subdivisions without white and yellow paint. Fifty-one of these 67 roads qualified for a lower speed limit. Collector roads are the busiest neighborhood roads with yellow and white lines. Eight of the 42 such roads qualified for a lower speed limit.

The consultant presented three options: maintain the 30 mph speed limit citywide and have a traffic calming plan that would allow things such as speed bumps or traffic islands if neighborhoods request them , although the rules for getting there are not simple. The second option is to reduce speed limits on residential roads in the city to 25 and keep them at 30 for collector roads. But it would cost $1.6 million. The panels are so expensive.

The third option is to lower speed limits and pay that cost, as well as add traffic calming features such as speed bumps and reducing lane widths by narrowing white road lines. one foot on each side, as well as electronic signs that alert drivers. when they accelerate.

“If I’m looking at $1.6 million, or maybe more than $1.6 million to support the sheriff,” Mayor David Alfin told Manny Rodriguez of Kimley-Horn, the engineering and construction consultant planning, “if we were to spend this on catching up with the deputies, in terms of enforcement, the conversation becomes slightly different than what we’re having today.” You did your job, I understand. You also have to look at the other side. »

Florida Park Drive is a collector road. The average speed there is 37, with an average of nine accidents per year. The study did not specify the severity of the accidents. The study considered — but did not recommend — two traffic calming devices on Florida Park Drive, such as islands, each of which would cost $250,000. Islands generally do not reduce speed more than 2 or 3 miles per hour.

Traffic islands are effective on long stretches of road. “We’re looking at Florida Park Drive,” said Manny Rodriguez of Kimley-Horn, an engineering and planning consultant, “about a 2-mile stretch, putting in those two locations, it doesn’t seem worth it. We’re spending half a million dollars to reduce the speed limit by three miles per hour.

The conditions justifying the addition of stop signs were not met. But the consultant East recommend speed bumps for Florida Park Drive. The same conclusions apply to Cimmaron Drive. A majority of neighbors near the road where a speed bump would be installed would have to consent. In Ormond Beach, Alfin said, residents pay for the speed bumps they want installed and pay for the work when they want them removed. This could be a possibility in Palm Coast.

Deeming speed bumps “a nuisance,” at least to residents around them, Council Member Nick Klufas proposed a pilot program rather than a blanket approach. “Obviously we don’t have speed bumps on all the roads we drive on, and there’s a reason for that,” he said.

Cote said the traffic calming plan would first have to be developed before the city could determine where and at what cost speed bumps would be installed.

“I’m more in favor of lowering the speed limit than speed bumps,” said Council Member Ed Danko.

For Council Member Theresa Pontieri, she didn’t want Florida Park Drive and Cimmaron to “commandeer” the conversation. She wants the approach to be adopted citywide. She is in favor of a traffic calming plan on the two roads, but based on criteria that would also apply to the other roads. It favors speed bumps, as opposed to speed bumps.

“Yes, every second is crucial when it comes to saving a life, I agree. But looking at the bigger picture, lowering speed limits also saves lives,” Pontieri said. “So I agree with Chief Berryhill: there is a balance to be struck. When I look at the costs of lowering the speed limits, which are $1.5 million or $1.6 million, as a rough estimate, I cannot justify that to my residents. I can’t do it, especially with all the other expenses we have. The alternative is a speed bump,” which would cost about $7,500 per speed bump.

That means a more palatable $22,000 solution for Florida Park Drive than $1.6 million for a citywide boundary lowering. Pontieri said she would keep open the possibility of narrowing Florida Park Drive, but would oppose half-million dollar traffic islands for the same reason she opposes lowering speed limits.

Both Pontieri and Danko focused on enforcing the rules. “We need greater enforcement of speed limits on our residential roads,” Pontieri said. “It’s not something new. I have already asked our sheriff’s office about this and I want to be very clear. I think our sheriff’s office does a fantastic job keeping our community safe, but traffic control on our residential roads is extremely important because we don’t have sidewalks, we have people on bikes, people walking, we have pets, we have children, it’s so crucial that we’re seeing a slight improvement in enforcement.

Pontieri drew a direct link between the sheriff’s office, which requested nine additional deputies to police the city as part of a 20 percent funding increase, and traffic enforcement. “We could kill two birds with one stone, recruit our deputies and see stricter enforcement on our residential roads,” she said.

Staly pointed to the 130% increase in traffic stops since he took over as sheriff in 2017, as well as a misperception of speeding and traffic problems. “Often, but not always, we find that this is a perception and not a reality,” the sheriff said. “What we do every time we get a traffic complaint, we install cameras that will track the speed, date and time, so we can get an average speed, then we can find out what the average speed is . This is the best time to enforce traffic laws and make an impact, because just having an MP sit on a street for six hours is not a good use of resources.

It is not only traffic police who provide traffic control. Every patrol car is now equipped with a radar and every deputy has been sent to a 40-hour course on radar enforcement, Staly said. He also warned of worsening traffic ahead as thousands of new residents continue to move in – a projected 40,000 more over the next 11 years.

“I hope the city doesn’t set expectations so high that just lowering the speed limit would be the solution, because that’s not the case,” he said, addressing one of the options. His team studies the city’s traffic report before formulating its own conclusions.

“It’s really about ROI, return on investment, in terms of how much we spend to get a certain outcome,” Alfin said. “Clearly, there is no perfect solution other than having perfect drivers, and even then we probably have some problems. But we will do our best with the resources we prioritize in the budget to make it better than it is today.

speed study on Palm Coast