Traffic sets roadblocks to cool living.

The plans envisioned for a stretch of Corrine Drive, between Baldwin Park and Leu Gardens in Orlando, look like a Main Street utopia.

A five-lane sea of dull, cracked concrete would be replaced with bike paths and pedestrian walkways, a tree canopy and on-street parking.

You can imagine a happy family strolling along Corrine, en route to an afternoon of gourmet food-browsing at the East End Market or shopping at the hip and eccentric Lovely Boutique Market.

As one who lives right around the corner, I think to myself: Hey, that could be MY hip and happy family! Bring it on.

There’s just one problem with this vision of utopian suburbia: The street that’s now five lanes and handles more than 25,000 cars a day could be shrunk to two or three lanes.

And that’s not a recipe for traffic utopia. It’s a recipe for a traffic nightmare.

When I mentioned my concerns to a friend, she responded: “Scott, this would be awesome for you. It would make your neighborhood the place to be. Your property values would soar.”

As a homeowner, I’d love to see my property values soar.

But as a newspaper columnist, I have to think about people besides myself.

And I can’t help but think about those 25,000 motorists — the ones who need to use this road every day to get to and from work.

Traffic estimates show that simply shrinking this road — putting it on a “road diet” as urban planners like to call it — could turn this well-functioning thoroughfare into a congested mess.

So now we have government squabbling, debates erupting and Facebook groups forming.

This is the dilemma that faces much of Central Florida as we continue to mature.

We want to be a community of livable, walkable neighborhoods. But we are also a traffic-jammed version of the “The Walking Dead,” where hordes of car zombies slowly try to trample each other every day.

Orlando ranks as the secondmost traffic-choked city in Florida.

Why? Because we grew up too fast with too much sprawl and too little planning. We were obsessed with luring people here and less concerned with how we’d handle them.

So now, debates like the one in the emerging Audubon Park neighborhood, just northeast of downtown, are playing out all over Central Florida.

The key is balance. And sacrifice. And cooperation. And creative planning.

Orlando planners say they’re just trying to give residents what they want — and that a neighborhood like Audubon Park that’s brimming with retail, but short

on sidewalks and thick with speedy traffic, is a perfect place to make improvements.

“People tell us they want to be able to walk and ride their bikes,” said City Administrator Kevin Edmonds. “So we’re trying to listen to them.” Amen, city. But then there’s the perspective of Orange County Commissioner Ted Edwards (the county and city each own part of this road, which is another byproduct of haphazard growth ... and an argument for consolidation), who argues that you can’t simply choke off a major thoroughfare without giving motorists an alternative. Amen, county. See the dilemma? This leaves planners looking for creative solutions. City folks say there are design features, like roundabouts, that could help a smaller road still move traffic effectively. They also say changing driving behavior, slowing some cars and rerouting others are all necessary to make neighborhoods more livable.

People often initially cringe at change. But anyone who really looks at our sprawling, trafficclogged region knows we need to do some things differently.

And the city has also vowed not to do anything until it hears from neighbors, businesses and those involved. That’s key. Buy-in is crucial.

There’s no panacea. We have to cook up a solution gumbo.

We need more transit options and more walkable communities — both things that remove cars from the road.

We have to stop allowing sprawl, improve existing roads and, yes, do some roads differently.

Safety also has to be a top priority. As America’s death capital for pedestrians, Orlando asks for trouble when it encourages development along busy roads without adequate sidewalks, crosswalks and bikeways.

For all those reasons, Orange County’s Edwards says he’s confident the city and county will be able to agree on some needed improvements to Corrine. I still think he’s also right that commuters have to be kept in mind — maybe with improvements to alternative routes.

Really, it’s all part of an evolution. We’ve seen it in Thornton Park, then College Park, now Audubon Park, and it won’t stop there.

It’s sometimes painful. But hopefully, we’ll continue to improve older neighborhoods — and build the newer ones smarter from the start ...so we don’t have to go back and do it all again.