Lots of near crashes in plaza
Whew. If you think the parking lot of Trader Joe’s is busy on the weekends, you should see the corner of the plaza nearest the Dunkin’ Donuts on a weekday at noon. The cars jockeying for a spot in the too-small-forparking lot may or may not wait for the cars backing up before zipping through.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever played the game ‘Frogger?’” Klaudio Doraci asked when I approached him as he walked back to his car after a coffee run around noon. I nodded. “That’s what I feel like.”
The potential for fender-benders is exacerbated by the design of the southeast corner of the parking lot.
The cars waiting at the stop sign after coming out of the Chase Bank drive-through lane have to compete with the stream of cars turning in and out of the parking lot from Prosperity Farms Road.
Then there are the cars that sneak up on all the action and avoid the traffic by coming up the side of the Dunkin’ Donuts from around the back of the building, as though there were a drive-through. To their credit, they probably beat a lot of the traffic on the front end of the plaza.
Remarkably, with the exception of the honking that’s routine during high sea- Sarah Peters son, everyone is pretty civil. Sometimes.
They just know you have to be careful.
On Thursday, Doraci complained that someone almost hit his car when he was coming in the driveway by Marshalls, because they were backing out and didn’t see him. He’s undeterred. “I need my coffee,” he explained.
One woman said the parking lot’s not always this way. As she backed out of her parking space, though, one car in the through lane didn’t want to wait, and another squeezed closer, angling to get her spot.
I watched it all as a neutral observer over the lunch hour Thursday, following up on the suggestion of a colleague. (I’ve never been to that Dunkin’ Donuts, and I’ve been to Trader Joe’s maybe three times, none of them recently. The addictive chocolate-covered espresso beans just kept me too wired.)
Some adjustments, such as making traffic flow in one direction, may help, Leroy Lake said. His large vehicle makes it difficult to get in or out of parking spots, he said.
Bordered by Prosperity Road to the east and PGA Boulevard to the north, there’s not much literal room for any other improvement. It’s a good problem to have. Jose Garcia remembered when the plaza was “dead” seven or eight years ago.
“The plaza has actually done very well since its facelift,” he said.
Garcia, of North Palm Beach, originally planned to go to the Subway a few doors down from Dunkin’ Donuts for lunch, but the line was too long. He ended up at the coffee shop instead.
He wanted to stay close to the route of his cleaning business clients when he went to lunch. The parking lot doesn’t have a “very good design,” he said, noting he’s had many close calls.
It seems the problem has a lot to do with human behavior.
“It’s crazy. People have no respect for people who are pulling in or backing out,” Garcia said.