On Traffic, Traffic Studies, and the Need for Speed

In a recent City Council Meeting I brought up the subject of lowering speed limits on my street, San Marco Road, to a uniform 30 mph. 

San Marco Road is one of the most beautiful streets on Marco Island with scenery that varies from the majestic palm trees of Residents Beach to the mangrove estuary of Fruit Farm Creek. A beautiful new multi-use path runs the entire length and connects to Goodland Road. You can walk, run, or bike the entire way without having to get into the street, which is a good thing because doing so could kill you. Part of the problem is the volume of traffic and the other part is the varying speed limits on the road. 

When you come onto the island from the Stan Gober Bridge, the speed limit is 55 mph. If you’ve ever driven the section of Route 92 from Route 41 to Goodland, you know that if you drive 55mph you are routinely passed by cars and trucks going 65mph or even faster. 

As soon as you crest the bridge and pass the “Welcome to Marco Island” sign, the speed drops to 45 mph. Most drivers continue driving 55mph or faster because they’ve driven at that pace for several miles already. When you hit the Marco Island Academy the speed drops and varies from 20-35 mph depending upon whether school is starting or ending. The same school speed limit pattern occurs a mile down the road in the area of the school crossing near Cushing Road. From there to Collier Blvd the speed limit is 35mph. This fluctuating speed limit is confusing, and when drivers exit the school zones, they accelerate beyond 35 mph to make up for their lost time. 

Traffic on the road has increased exponentially since we built our home which backs up to the YMCA pickleball courts in 2017. 

When I brought this up at the 2/7/22 City Council Meeting, I was informed by the Director of Public Works, and fellow Council Members that a “recent traffic study” (circa 2015) did not find any problems with the speed on San Marco Road. In fact, it recommended just the opposite, that we needed to increase speed on that road. 

You don’t need a seven-year-old traffic study to tell you that the volume of traffic and the speed on San Marco road has become a problem. All you need to do to verify it is to try to pull out of your driveway from January through April like I do several times a day. In fact, our reliance on outdated, sterile, statistically driven traffic studies completely overlooks the human, quality-of-life effects of traffic and speed. 

This was demonstrated recently with the proposed new restaurant at the end of Bald Eagle Drive. A traffic study was conducted to determine the impact of the new, 250+ seat restaurant, on the residents of and visitors to Olde Marco. The study, based on 2012 data, basically showed that the additional traffic caused by the restaurant would not negatively impact the area. 

Really??? 

All you need to do is try to walk, run, bike, or drive that section of Bald Eagle Drive any day from 5:00 to 8:00 PM to see how flawed this traffic “study” is. My wife and I stood at the corner of Bald Eagle and Palm last Saturday night from 7:00 to 7:30 PM and watched a steady line of cars, half of which never stopped at the stop sign at the intersection.

Since the two traffic studies cited in this editorial were done, we’ve built close to 1,000 new homes and experienced an explosion of golf carts, electric bicycles, scooters, and other vehicles that move much closer to 25mph than the posted 35mph and 45mph on San Marco Road. In fact, you’d break the law if you tried to drive one of these vehicles on San Marco Road from South Barfield to Goodland Road because you wouldn’t be able to maintain the 45mph speed limit on the last stretch of the road.

It is time to reassess our reliance on outdated, sterile, statistics-based traffic studies that do not require human beings to walk the area, sit and count cars, and observe traffic with their own eyes.

Rich Blonna

Marco Island, Florida