- April 25, 2024
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Palm Coast is preparing to spend $570,080 to design the narrowing of Whiteview Parkway from four lanes to two in order to add turn lanes so that cars turning onto side streets don’t have to stop in front of moving traffic.
"It’s how not to do a street design, and it’s also where you will see memorials in the streets right now, where we’ve had fatalities."
— Jim Landon, Palm Coast City Manager, on Whiteview Parkway
“I’ve heard a lot of comments about, ‘Well we’re just killing a couple of street lanes to build a path.’ This project is so much more than that,” City Manager Jim Landon said at a July 31 City Council workshop. “It is the next step in our safety program.”
The concept, he said, “is that you have a thru-lane and a turn lane.” Currently, he said, “People are rear-ending the driver of the car that’s waiting to turn left.”
The road, he said, doesn’t need four lanes. “You don’t have that much traffic,” he said. “The turn lanes add capacity because then you get cars off the street.”
The new plan also includes the addition of streetlights and a pedestrian path.
According to a city staff report, “Based on 2017 Crash Analysis completed by River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization, Whiteview Parkway is deemed second highest crash road segment in Volusia and Flagler Counties based on crash severity.”
Mayor Milissa Holland need that many residents have asked for the addition of sidewalks in residential areas, and that while that’s not possible on streets where swales present a problem, it is possible in projects like the Whiteview one.
“We are putting in sidewalks all across our city, and we’re doing in t in a very deliberate and strategic manner,” she said.
The project will be paid for with street impact fees, Landon said.
