Road diet suits some, inflames others
Rush hour along Curry Ford Road during its temporary overhaul is provoking bumper-to-bumper traffic and finger-flipping irritability.
Testing a safety concept, the city of Orlando has trimmed the often-fast and relatively furious corridor between Bumby Avenue and Crystal Lake Drive from five lanes for cars to three, giving space for ample bike lanes on both sides.
The monthlong road diet along a half-mile of Curry Ford, a stretch bisected by signals at the Primrose Drive intersection, is little more than half over but already has been
instructive to City Hall.
The modifications were not meant to be permanent and weren’t put into place with a sufficient heads-up to the public, transportation director Billy Hattaway said.
“There’s a good chance there are a lot of people not willing to change their schedules, which is understandable,” Hattaway said.
Curry Ford’s diet was done with removable lane stripes and plastic poles. Hattaway and another city staffer observed an afternoon rush hour last week.
Heading west toward Bumby, traffic was barely moving.
One driver coming from Crystal Lake rolled by with her middle finger aimed at Hattaway, who looked the part of a government professional but otherwise bore no identification.
A man driving a red Mustang in the adjoining Winn-Dixie parking lot pulled over and asked what was going on.
Hattaway assured him the road change was not forever.
“Man, it’s rough,” the driver responded.
Yet also during Hattaway’s inspection, a cyclist pedaled by, hollering, “Keep the bike lanes.”
In the first week of the experiment, City Hall received 115 emails about the diet, with 69 opposed and 46 in favor, said spokeswoman Cassandra Lafser.
“If you are thinking this will be a thornton park or college park or winter park and lots of people will stroll along on bikes I think you are very misled,” wrote a person describing himself as a 17-year resident of the area.
Another writer gushed with enthusiasm.
“For the first time in the two years that I have lived in the neighborhood, I was able to ride bicycles with my family to the local businesses,” he said.
City Commissioner Patty Sheehan, whose district includes Curry Ford, said on Facebook of the road remake: “This is not a diet, more like starvation.”
Sheehan went on to post: “We will get this right. And rather than screaming at each other from the extremes. Let’s work together to get it right.”
Road diets are one remedy sought in a state and region ranked as the nation’s most lethal for pedestrians and cyclists.
The squeezing of Edgewater Drive in College Park from four lanes to three in 2002 reduced crashes and speed, according to studies.
Now considered for such a fix are Corrine Drive in Audubon Park and Robinson Street along Lake Eola Park and farther east.
Curry Ford is not now proposed for a permanent diet. The experiment there is a case study for how best to implement such a measure.
Curry Ford, Edgewater, Corrine and Robinson each carry upward of 20,000 cars daily.
Speeding on Curry Ford, which has a posted 35-mph limit, is common; the vast majority of cars travel 45 mph westbound between Bumby and Primrose.
The accident rate for cars and cyclists is considered by the city as far too high, and the road is viewed as hostile by design and traffic volume.
It is wide and yet offers little extra room for cyclists, has no raised medians as a refuge for pedestrians and extends a quarter-mile without crosswalks from Bumby to Primrose and from Primrose to Crystal Lake.
The diet includes a midblock crosswalk between the Winn-Dixie and a Wawa about 500 feet west of Crystal Lake.
Hattaway said the mixed perspectives are challenging for the city.
Commuters from as far as Conway and Avalon want to cut through Curry Ford neighborhoods, Hattaway said, but also at stake is the safety of drivers, cyclists and pedestrians who live in those neighborhoods.
The city would not provide preliminary data on changes in speeds and traffic counts during the experiment.
Costing about $75,000, the trial was financed by the city, Smart Growth America and a federal grant.
The tryout will end the first weekend of May.
That’s when a crew will peel up 16 patches of green that indicate bike lanes, 110 plastic poles, the crosswalk and miles of glueddown lane tape.