{"id":20536,"date":"2022-03-03T23:15:04","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T04:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=20536"},"modified":"2022-03-03T23:15:04","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T04:15:04","slug":"south-florida-ave-road-diet-failure-any-other-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/03\/03\/south-florida-ave-road-diet-failure-any-other-options\/","title":{"rendered":"South Florida Ave road diet failure any other options????"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lakeland commissioners\u00a0aren’t\u00a0thrilled with the South Florida Avenue “road diet”\u00a0as the pilot study comes to an end.<\/p>\n

The trial period\u00a0was slated\u00a0to run for\u00a0a\u00a0year, from October 2020 to October 2021. FDOT extended the study into 2022 at the request of city commissioners last summer. Commissioners expressed concerns COVID might have reduced the number of vehicles on the road, according to Chuck Barmby, Lakeland’s business development and transportation manager.\"\"<\/p>\n

‘We were concerned about making a decision too quickly,” Barmby said. “We wanted to get through this peak season to see on\u00a0South Florida Avenue what travel looked like.”<\/p>\n

FDOT officials estimated that COVID had reduced the number of vehicles traveling along the Dixieland corridor by 5% to 10% during the first five months of the trial.<\/p>\n

The state agency anticipates holding a public forum in April to allow\u00a0Lakeland residents to give their feedback on the road diet, according to FDOT spokeswoman Tricia Pichette.\u00a0An exact date or location has yet to be determined.<\/p>\n

“What’s\u00a0the other option? We hate it, I hate it,”<\/strong> Commissioner Stephanie Madden said last week, citing complaints from residents.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Bill Read made clear he’s not a fan of the road diet, giving his own vision for the corridor’s future.<\/p>\n

“I think DOT missed the boat in this particular area,” <\/strong>he said.<\/p>\n

“The road as it existed before was not acceptable,” Barmby said. “It doesn\u2019t mean the road diet\u00a0is the permanent solution.”<\/p>\n

Can it be put back? Probably not<\/p>\n

The road diet pilot cost approximately $1.7 million to construct over a period of about six months. It was paid for by the FDOT and the Lakeland Community Redevelopment Agency.<\/p>\n

The city’s goals of reducing accidents, improving pedestrian safety, and encouraging economic activity and growth in Dixieland will remain at the forefront of any changes in the South Florida Avenue corridor.<\/p>\n

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Lakeland commissioners\u00a0aren’t\u00a0thrilled with the South Florida Avenue “road diet”\u00a0as the pilot study comes to an end. The trial period\u00a0was slated\u00a0to run for\u00a0a\u00a0year, from October 2020 to October 2021. FDOT extended… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[2454],"class_list":["post-20536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-road-diet"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}