Solutions sought on SE 17th St. traffic

Southeast 17th Street is so clogged with traffic, it’s like the old Yogi Berra saying: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler said people “aren’t going to 17th because they can’t get to it.” He and other city leaders said something must be done about the congestion, bottlenecks and hundreds of car accidents each year.

Prompted by the troubles, Fort Lauderdale officials last week endorsed about100 ideas for reducing congestion and for making the road safer for cyclists and pedestrians.

“The congestion on 17th Street is the No. 1 priority,” Elizabeth Van Zandt, the city’s mobility manager, said in unveiling the 17th Street Corridor-Mobility Plan.

The ideas range from the relatively easy, like banning drive-thru restaurants because they encourage driving, to those already deemed too unpopular or difficult to carry out, like removing driving lanes to add room for bike riders and walkers.

One key suggestion likely to get heavy debate in the

coming year is a flyover carrying drivers through — or over— Port Everglades, and taking the traffic off 17th.

The state-owned Southeast 17th Street is too congested for cars and inadequate for bikes and pe-desrtrians, city officials said.

Parts of the road are rated as failing because traffic moves so slowly.

The span of 17th Street in Fort Lauderdale from U.S. 1/Federal Highway to the E. Clay Shaw Bridge leading to the beach is one of the most heavily used roads in Broward County, state traffic data show.

The road is lined with commercial businesses, including Harbor Shops, but it also attracts traffic from across the region, to Port Everglades, the Art Institute, the Broward County Convention Center and the beach. The causeway to the barrier island is one of only five roads to the beach in Fort Lauderdale.

Rush hour conditions there last the entire day. And developers continue to be attracted, bringing more people and more cars.

“We know 17th Street is a different animal,” Van Zandt said.

Among the study’s “high impact” recommendations:

Create a bypass road allowing drivers to get from U.S. 1 to Fort Lauderdale beach without traveling on Southeast 17th Street. This could be accomplished with a southern parallel street to 17th, such as Southeast 20th Street, connecting to Eisenhower. Or an elevated bypass could fly over Port Everglades, connecting U.S. 1 to Eisenhower. The idea has been discussed for many years.

Redirect Port Everglades truck and cruise traffic to two other Port entryways, both off of U.S. 1 — Eller Drive at the eastern terminus of Interstate 595 and Spangler Boulevard/State Road 84. Currently, some drivers enter the Port off Southeast 17th Street, at Eisenhower Boulevard.

Install a path alongside Southeast 17th Street — but not on the roadway itself — for bike riders and pedestrians.

Improve access to Interstate 595 from U.S. 1. Currently, the traffic backs up all the way to 17th Street, city officials said. The state is considering re-striping the on-ramp-for-two-lanes of traffic.

Re-time traffic signals when big events are planned at the beach, or heavy cruise passenger traffic is expected.

Redesign the Eisenhower Boulevard intersection with Grande Drive, near the Art Institute, which gets clogged with vehicles headed to 17th Street.

The 17th Street Corridor Mobility Plan carries new urgency, because Broward County plans to expand its convention center and add a hotel to it, bringing still more traffic to 17th. The city will be asked to approve the plans, possibly by the end of the year.

City Commissioner Dean Trantalis said the 90-page plan, a “guide for discussion,” is a signal to the county that traffic improvements must be offered with the convention center projects.

Chief among the traffic problems, according to the city, is that after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the county restricted access to Port Everglades, one of the country’s busiest cruise ports and the entry point for South Florida’s petroleum.

Beach-bound drivers on U.S. 1 used to cut through the port to get to Eisenhower Boulevard, then make a quick eastward turn to drive over the causeway to the beach. Now, all of the beach-bound traffic from U.S. 1 is forced onto 17th Street.

The county considered replacing that lost port cutthrough by building a bypass expressway, possibly elevated, from the port’s State Road 84/Spangler Boulevard entrance to Eisenhower Boulevard. The project was abandoned in 2013 because it was expected to cost from $67.5 million to $93 million.

Seiler said the port cutthrough remains a top priority, one the county should pay for as part of its convention center project.

“That is the No. 1issue for traffic,” he said at a recent meeting. “We used to let those cars go through the port, and we didn’t have that problem.”

Commissioner Romney Rogers, who has said the convention center should be “moved” downtown, agreed.

“It’s the only real solution,” Rogers said.