- April 28, 2024
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Dear Editor:
Sidewalks would have been a great amenity. When Palm Coast was laid out, it would have been a great opportunity to add sidewalks. A few calculations on the back of a cocktail napkin will demonstrate that sidewalks in Palm Coast are now cost-prohibitive.
Palm Coast's roadway network was set up in a way that incentivizes motorists to use particular roadways. Roads with higher speed limits and multiple lanes have wider lines of sight, making faster travel safer. Smaller roads are designed to carry less traffic at slower speeds.
It didn’t make sense to make Pine Lakes Parkway into a four-lane road when the population was small. That doesn’t mean that we would never need additional capacity, but some people thought, 'Hey we can use the extra right-of-way for an exercise trail and let people in the future sort out the mess we made.' The Shirley Chisholm Trail made a lot of sense when the population was small, but now it incentivizes motorists to cut through a neighborhood.
Pine Lakes Parkway has a wide right-of-way to allow future widening. Additional lanes would let motorists safely pass slower vehicles. To shave off a few seconds, some motorists living off Wynnfield Drive discovered that it is quicker to get to Belle Terre Parkway and S.R. 100 by cutting through Whirlaway and Whippoorwill. This creates an unsafe situation for pedestrians.
Just the other day, I was walking my dogs along Whirlaway and a motorist driving extremely fast on Whipporwill passed between a moving school bus and me. The bus driver stopped to comment on how dangerous this was.
That was not the first near miss. Many children have bus stops along Whippoorwill and walk along the road with eyes glued to their phones. When kids are on their way to school, the sun is often blinding motorists traveling east on Whippoorwill. Throw in a foggy windshield and you have an even more hazardous situation.
Is it time to four-lane Pine Lakes Parkway? I think so. How many near-misses, or worse, is a good tradeoff for an exercise trail? In the short term, what can we do to protect school-age children and pedestrians along Whippoorwill? I suggest some traffic calming by narrowing the road with cones or rubber posts at a few locations to disincentivize motorists cutting through. Another idea is to move bus stops off east-west roads where the sun blinds motorists.
Alexander Spiller, P.E.
Palm Coast
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