LAKE WORTH TO TALK TRAFFIC AT THURSDAY TOWN HALL
LAKE WORTH — Peggy Fisher has lived on North A Street for more than 10 years. She loves Lake Worth, but she’s often at city commission meetings voicing her concerns.
One of her biggest worries? Traffic near her house. “I work for the state on Florida’s Turnpike,” said Fisher, 64. “I used to go on North A Street to 10th Avenue, then turn left to get on 95 to go to Southern Boulevard ... because it has very few lights to get to the turnpike.” But she stopped doing that. Now Fisher takes Lake Worth Road, going through about 20 traffic lights, because it’s quicker.
“It would take me on average about three light cycles (on North A) to turn left because there’s no dedicated turn lane and there’s so much traffic coming south you can’t turn,” Fisher said.
City Commissioner Omari Hardy is hoping to change that.
He’s hosting a Town Hall Traffic Meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Lake Worth Casino Ballroom, 10 S. Ocean Blvd.
Among those planning to discuss the issue are Palm Beach County Commissioner Dave Kerner; Kevin Micocci of the Florida Department of Transportation; Pat Kennedy, a civil engineer who works with FDOT; and Leo Gao, a senior professional engineer who works with the the county’s traffic division.
Hardy said the meeting is long overdue.
“We don’t control 10th Avenue, we don’t control I-95, we don’t control the traffic signal on 10th Avenue, but what I can do is put our residents in the room with the people who do,” he said. “These are the people who can solve their problems.”
Residents have been complaining about traffic issues for years at 10th Avenue North and A Street, 10th Avenue and North D Street, the I-95 overpass and 22nd Avenue and Dixie Highway.
“We’re trying to work together with the county and FDOT, which is doing a large construction project on 10th Avenue and I-95,” Hardy said. “I want residents to understand why things are they way they are and what FDOT is trying to accomplish.”
The long-term solution, Hardy said, could be adding a few seconds to the traffic signal. “This has been going on for years,” he said. “I moved here in 2014 and it was a problem and nobody really did anything about it.”
Kerner said he will primarily be there to listen, take notes and develop a plan for a solution.
“The complaints are wellfounded,” Kerner said. “It’s a congested area and there’s more density coming ... and it’s exacerbated by construction of the overpass . ... The roadways have not kept up with the population or the times.”
Hardy said growth on A Street is one of the reasons for all the traffic. He mentioned the Lake Cove Community, a new single-family home development being built on 19th Avenue North.
“That will bring more cars to the roads,” he said. “The solution to traffic isn’t just to say no to growth, the solution is to try to solve the traffic problems.”
Hardy said he has no idea how much it would cost to fix the problem. “A Street is not our jurisdiction,” he said. “But FDOT will execute projects that are locally funded and they will sometimes find blended sources.”
Fisher said the problem is especially bad during the school year.
“Sometimes the school crossing guards will block traffic to get kids across the road, which I totally understand,” she said. “But it doesn’t allow anyone to turn toward the interstate. This has been this way at least the past six years and it’s getting worse.”