City Improving Bike-Ped Safety 

Sometimes the city’s efforts fly underneath the radar. Such is the case with recent bicycle-pedestrian improvements being executed islandwide. Recently, the city’s public works department has led efforts to install lead pedestrian intervals at key intersections and signalized crosswalks throughout the island.

“During the Collier-Barfield intersection project we programmed pedestrian safety improvements into it that we couldn't do before,” said Justin Martin, the city’s public works director. “We have something new. It's called the lead pedestrian interval, which means the moment you push the crosswalk button to cross the street and get the white walk signal, you have seven seconds to get out into the middle of the intersection to be visible to turning vehicles, both right turn and coming from the counter direction. What used to happen is you pushed the button and as soon as the walk signal turned white, the light for the traffic turned green. So you would have turning traffic going right in front of where the pedestrians (and bicycles) were going. I myself saw four near-misses with the old intersections that we have, particularly there at Elkcam and Bald Eagle and then also at Elkcam East and West and Collier, where you see that happen all the time. Now we have the ability to program a seven-second delay, or head start I call it, for pedestrians to get out into the intersection, be seen and visible, before the turning movement starts. Nationally it has been shown to save lives by 40 percent. We now have a current updated traffic controllers for all the other intersections that have traffic controllers from 2005, which are eight generations behind. That’s like using a computer from 2005 versus one from today."

Martin said the new traffic controllers will be installed at 10 of the island’s busiest intersections.

“It was last month we were issued the notice to proceed,” Martin said. "At 10 intersections, we will change out the controllers to all new controllers, put in new emergency vehicle preemption systems, put in new vehicle detection cameras with all new wiring. It's not something that you're visibly going to see, but it updates the traffic controllers at each one of those intersections to bring them up to current standards so that we can then program the pedestrian intervals and do all the safety enhancements that are needed. And then there’s resiliency, because we're elevating the bottom where the cabinets are because we have storm surge. With storm surge, they would flood and you'd get saltwater in that electronics environment. With this project, we're putting in an additional concrete base, we're elevating that and putting a new cabinet up higher to get it out of the storm surge. That's in the works. By the end of the year we'll have that in place.”

Martin said a number of strategically placed signalized crosswalks throughout the island will improve pedestrian and bicycle safety.

“We have the signalized crosswalks at San Marco and Cushing for Tommie Barfield Elementary where the kids push the button and cross over. That's getting a new controller also. We're upgrading all the controllers in the city.

"The Sand Hill Shared Path Project continues from Leland all the way down to Winterberry. So those homes on the west side of Sand Hill now have a new shared use path where they previously had a four-foot-wide sidewalk. Now they have an eight-foot-wide path, and as part of that, we did the crossing to connect it to the linear park trail at Calusa Park. Our new standard for what we call mid-block or non-stop condition crosswalks is a flashing beacon. That one's a flashing beacon just like the ones you see in front of the Marriott, in front of Pier 81, and at Rose Marina. We also put in a crosswalk crossing at Heathwood to get from the library to Mackle Park. And then there's another one on North Barfield to get to Leigh Plummer Park. We had some residents that would call us every year. 'When are you going to put a crosswalk in there? Our kids can't go to the park.’ Now they have a new flashing beacon crosswalk there. Push the button and have a flashing light."

Martin also touched on the bicycle speed limit sidewalk markings.

“All the 12 miles per hour sidewalk warnings have been painted,” he said. "That's something that council approved. They deliberated whether it was 10 or 15 mph and they compromised at 12 mph. It's in the ordinance. We painted 12 miles an hour on all of the shared paths immediately after a significant side street, like for instance on San Marco and Lamplighter. You have a lot of traffic that goes down there."