- November 23, 2024
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Dear Editor:
The recent letter to the editor blaming the city of Palm Coast for traffic conditions on Florida Park Drive is unfair and inaccurate, and I’d like to set the record straight on the many actions taken by the city and the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office to reduce speeding along the roadway.
Florida Park Drive is a heavily utilized north-south route between Palm Harbor Drive and Palm Coast Parkway, with a posted speed limit of 30 mph, which is the typical speed limit for Palm Coast’s residential streets. Over the past few years, in response to residents’ complaints, the city has worked closely with the Sheriff’s Office to add extra patrols and electronic signs to address speeding.
I checked with Cmdr. Mark Carman, and he said the Sheriff’s Office regularly implements the Special Traffic Enforcement Program along Florida Park Drive. In the past year, deputies conducted 80 such STEP programs along Florida Park Drive. Since Jan. 1, 2008, approximately 490 traffic tickets and another 357 warnings have been issued to motorists along Florida Park.
The city has carefully considered many suggestions made by residents, including adding speed bumps and roundabouts and changing the roadway’s usage, that are simply not wise or feasible.
Florida Park Drive was originally designed using Conventional Suburban Design standards — a design oriented to the use of automobiles, with no sidewalks, wide streets, wide setbacks and commercial areas separated from residential areas. Traffic-slowing features such as roundabouts are common with Traditional Neighborhood Design, used in mixed-use neighborhoods such as Town Center, with tree-lined narrow streets, sidewalks, narrow setbacks, homes with front porches and similar features that make them walkable communities. TND neighborhoods are not oriented to vehicular use.
Converting the Florida Park Drive neighborhood from Conventional Suburban Design to Traditional Neighborhood Design would be virtually impossible. It would require condemnation of some, if not all, existing homes, and installation of roundabouts and other design features at a cost that residents would find prohibitive.
Given the design of Florida Park Drive and its heavy use, it also would not make sense to convert it a one-way street or turn it into a dead-end. Likewise, given Florida Park Drive’s design and current usage, there is no compelling reason to lower the speed limit.
A few years from now, the city hopes to widen Old Kings Road north of Palm Coast Parkway from two lanes to four. Our hope is that expansion would relieve some of the traffic pressure from Florida Park Drive.
In the meantime, we will continue to work closely with the Sheriff’s Office to take a proactive approach to speeding issues on Florida Park Drive. Cmdr. Carman and I, and other city officials, have communicated this information to the concerned residents many times. It is unfair and inaccurate to state that we have been unresponsive and unwilling to do anything. It just is not the case.
Jon Netts
Mayor of Palm Coast
