- April 17, 2024
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Palm Coast kids who walk or bike to school may soon have an easier time crossing a tricky intersection.
“The whole intersection is just dangerous,” said Palm Coast resident Laura Gollon of Belle Terre Parkway and State Road 100, where her teenage son Chris has almost been hit biking to school. Gollon calls it "the death trap intersection."
The problem is a crosswalk timing issue: A steady stream of cars turns right across the crosswalk even while pedestrians, many of them students heading to or from Flagler Palm Coast High School, have a walk signal.
City officials plan to swap out one of the intersection’s plain three-light traffic signals for one with yellow and green turn signals, a change they believe will lower the number of vehicles competing with pedestrians in the crosswalk.
“In the afternoon it’s a very high volume,” said Florida Department of Transportation Traffic Engineer Chris Cairns, who studied the intersection for the city and recommended the light change. “There’s no way we can even get rid of half of them — there are so many people turning right — but it should be a significant percent decrease.”
The city learned of the problem through repeated complaints from parents, including Gollon, who says she spends her work days worrying about whether her son made it to school safely.
Another concerned parent who took action was Flagler Police Athletic League baseball coach George Roy. His own children don’t walk that route, he said, but the kids he coaches do.
“The kids all keep talking about it,” he said. “All of them said, ‘Yeah, I have problems crossing that street.’”
Roy headed out to the intersection with his smartphone and took video of children on foot or bicycles waiting through multiple walk signals to cross Belle Terre Parkway as cars streamed across the crosswalk in front of them.
A few times, the kids stepped forward during a walk signal and vehicles whizzed past them blaring their horns. Roy sent the videos to the Sheriff’s Office and city government and posted them on his Facebook page, asking for action.
“There are cars doing it every single day,” he said.
Palm Coast Traffic Engineer Sean Castello said things should improve within a few weeks, when the city installs the new signal.
Palm Coast would also like to add a sign telling drivers not to turn right at the intersection during a red light, he said, but that proposal has not yet been approved by the FDOT.
