On Monday, April 27th the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is slated to start construction for the Road Diet Test and Traffic Study through the Dixieland area on South Florida Avenue. The $950,000 project will construct a new traffic pattern on South Florida Avenue from Ariana Street to Lime Street in downtown Lakeland. The new traffic pattern includes reducing South Florida Avenue from two lanes in each direction to one lane in each direction with a center turn lane. Once in place, the new traffic pattern will be studied for effectiveness over the next year. For more information on this FDOT project, please visit www.swflroads.com/sr37/arianatolime.
City of Lakeland Transportation Planner, Chuck Barmby said, “The construction on the South Florida Avenue road diet project is expected to take five months to complete.” He added, “We continue to get a lot of questions regarding the impact to neighboring side streets and we are certainly going to measure that along with other traffic patterns during the one-year test period that will start when the construction is complete. It is also important for the community to know that the Citrus Connection established a new bus route called the Peach Line that does not have any stops in the one-mile construction zone.”
Visitors to the area know that traffic lanes are much narrower than today’s standards through the study area and sidewalks are right next to the busy roadway. These safety concerns moved FDOT to initiate the South Florida Avenue traffic study through the Dixieland area in 2016. This was a “first-of-its-kind” study in Florida that included traditional transportation analyses, and innovative components such as marketing analysis, a day-long community planning meeting (known as a charrette), a week-long design studio within a storefront on the corridor, public meetings and interviews with stakeholders in the study area.
The study also evaluated potential development sites, parking inventory, and short- and long-term transportation alternatives including a road diet through which Florida Avenue would be reduced from four to two through lanes between Ariana Street and Pine Street. Following the completion of the Corridor Study, the FDOT conducted a more detailed walk-through of the Florida Avenue corridor through which participants identified safety, maintenance and other physical problems with the road that could be addressed through routine maintenance activities are stand-alone construction projects and this was the start of planning on the road diet project. The City of Lakeland created a story board that helps give background information on the project. The storyboard can be found here: http://bit.ly/LakelandRoadDietTest.
For additional information about the City of Lakeland, visit www.lakelandgov.net. Citizens are also invited to follow the City on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Vimeo, Snapchat and Nextdoor. Citizens can find the City of Lakeland on these social media platforms by searching lakelandgov.