{"id":38600,"date":"2023-11-09T10:48:22","date_gmt":"2023-11-09T15:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=38600"},"modified":"2023-11-09T10:48:30","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T15:48:30","slug":"lakeland-drivers-still-adjusting-to-florida-avenue-road-diet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/11\/09\/lakeland-drivers-still-adjusting-to-florida-avenue-road-diet\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland drivers still adjusting to Florida Avenue \u2018road diet\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you\u2019ve driven on South Florida Ave in Lakeland lately, you\u2019re familiar with the concrete bumpers there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They are part of the Florida Department of Transportation\u2019s (FDOT) \u201croad diet\u201d there.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/road-diet_crop_1.jpeg?resize=1024%2C576&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-38601\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/road-diet_crop_1.jpeg?resize=1024%2C576&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/road-diet_crop_1.jpeg?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/road-diet_crop_1.jpeg?resize=768%2C432&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/road-diet_crop_1.jpeg?w=1280&amp;ssl=1 1280w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They are something Kayleigh Harrison sees every day at work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou can see marks. I think there\u2019s a piece of a tire. There\u2019s all kinds of things,\u201d Harrison said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She\u2019s referring to the numerous tire marks from cars that have struck the barricades. Working at Levy\u2019s Imperial Tire on Florida Avenue, she says the business often sees customers come in after running into one of the bumpers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cPeople don\u2019t see it. It causes flat tires. Sometimes it\u2019ll eat up a person\u2019s wheel when they blow out a tire. A lot of that adds up pretty quickly,\u201d Harrison said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bumpers were installed as part of the \u201croad diet\u201d on South Florida Avenue (State Road 37) in Lakeland\u2019s Dixieland corridor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FDOT changed the road from four narrow through lanes to two wider lanes, plus a center turning lane. The idea was to improve safety for drivers and pedestrians and get the road up to modern standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But it\u2019s led to some traffic complaints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s supposed to be for pedestrians. But it ends up affecting the cars more than anything,\u201d Harrison said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FDOT made the change after years of studies and public meetings.&nbsp; Lakeland officials say they have received positive feedback from some business owners. A study also showed that drive times were mostly unaffected by the change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The city commission voted to make the change permanent in December 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the road diet is here to stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>But city officials told the media that there are plans to at least remove the concrete barriers at some point in an upcoming budget year.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They\u2019ll eventually be replaced with amenities like new sidewalks, streetscapes and bike lanes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For more information, visit&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lakelandgov.net\/departments\/communications\/road-diet\/\">https:\/\/www.lakelandgov.net\/departments\/communications\/road-diet\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve driven on South Florida Ave in Lakeland lately, you\u2019re familiar with the concrete bumpers there. They are part of the Florida Department of Transportation\u2019s (FDOT) \u201croad diet\u201d there.&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38601,"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":[6655],"class_list":["post-38600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-lakeland-drivers-still-adjusting-to-florida-avenue-road-diet"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38600","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38600"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38603,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38600\/revisions\/38603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}