{"id":7279,"date":"2020-04-27T09:10:09","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T13:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=7279"},"modified":"2020-04-27T09:10:19","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T13:10:19","slug":"the-south-florida-ave-road-diet-has-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2020\/04\/27\/the-south-florida-ave-road-diet-has-started\/","title":{"rendered":"The South Florida Ave Road Diet has started"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The moment has arrived. With a desire for improvement and fear of change, South Florida Avenue in Lakeland will begin it\u2019s \u201croad diet\u201d on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Construction to slim down the roughly one-mile stretch of South Florida Avenue, from Ariana Street north to Lime Street, will begin Monday night, according to Florida Department of Transportation spokesman Brian Rick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The estimated $950,000 project will temporarily reduce South Florida Avenue from five lanes to three, leaving one travel lane in each direction with a central turning lane. Once construction is complete, a one-year pilot study will begin to determine whether the new traffic pattern is effective or too constrictive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of our partners have worked together to put this plan in place, we\u2019re going to see it come to fruition,\u201d Chuck Barmby, Lakeland\u2019s transportation and development review manager said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barmby said the plan to narrow South Florida Avenue has not significantly changed since the public forum in April 2019. The merge for northbound traffic lanes will occur before Ariana Street, according to Barmby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This modification raised concerns from residents of Hibriton Way and Belvedere Street, who were vocal before the Lakeland City Commission in January. Barmby said the city will be taking measures to ensure the neighborhoods\u2019 safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re definitely not encouraging motorists to navigate around the construction area on neighborhood streets,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s human nature that people will perhaps do that at first.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barmby said drivers originally attempted to divert around a similar road diet on Edgewater Drive in Orlando but found they weren\u2019t saving any travel time and gravitated back to the main roadway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s kind of what we\u2019re expecting here,\u201d he said. \u201cStay on Florida Avenue, it will take you less time to travel through the one-mile section than to drive through any other route.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Construction crews\u2019 first task will be removing the midblock pedestrian crossing between Palmetto and Hickory streets, according to Rick. It will later be rebuilt to match the road\u2019s narrower width.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During construction, Citrus Connection will offer a Peach Line — previously referred to as the Dixieland shuttle — from Southgate Shopping Center, around the construction zone, into downtown Lakeland. It will provide service every 30 minutes, from 6:15 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSafety is always our top priority and the implementation of the Peach Line will take passengers away from the traffic and construction along South Florida Avenue,\u201d Tom Phillips, Citrus Connection\u2019s executive director, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phillips said approximately 32 of the agency\u2019s 100 bus drivers have taken leave through April 30 because of concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. An additional 10 drivers are out of work for COVID-19 related reasons. The downtown shuttle will run as late as 7 p.m. once the transit agency returns to its normal operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe understand this is a change. We ask for the public\u2019s patience,\u201d Barmby said. \u201cThis is really, truly a test and the hope is we are going to be able to ultimately improve Florida Avenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The moment has arrived. With a desire for improvement and fear of change, South Florida Avenue in Lakeland will begin it\u2019s \u201croad diet\u201d on Monday. Construction to slim down the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7280,"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":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7279","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=7279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}