Local cyclists are seeking an amendment to Indian River County’s Comprehensive Plan to ensure that, where feasible, all roads built and rebuilt by the county embrace the Complete Streets Policy adopted last year by the Florida Department of Transportation.
The FDOT policy requires that, whenever possible, roads be built to accommodate not only motor vehicles but also pedestrians, bicyclists and, in larger cities, transit riders.
“In this county, we’re more concerned with motor vehicles, bicyclists and pedestrians,” said Hugh Aaron, a Vero Cycling Club instructor and its advocacy director. “So what we’re trying to do is make sure that any new roads or roads rebuilt by the county include bike lanes and sidewalks.”
Aaron and other representatives of the local cycling community met a short while ago with Phil Matson, director of the county’s Metropolitan Planning Organization, which endorses the adoption of the Complete Streets concept.
“It’ something we’re working on,” Matson said. “There are only a couple of windows per year during which you can amend the comprehensive plan and, right now, we’re looking at the January window.
“It’s a bureaucratic process any time you involve the state, so it will take a few months to get it done,” he added. “But unless there’s some opposition, which we don’t anticipate, it’s really just a formality. We’ll have it done at some point in 2016.”
To amend the county’s Comprehensive Plan to include the FDOT’s Complete Streets Policy, the proposal must be reviewed by Community Development Chief John McCoy and Public Works Director Chris Mora, then approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission and, ultimately, adopted through a vote of the Board of County Commissioners.
Not only have board members voiced support for the policy, but the county already is “implementing some aspects of the Complete Streets Police,” Matson said, citing the construction of bike lanes and sidewalks along 53rd Street and 45th Street.
Andy Sobczak, the county’s senior planner whose duties include bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, said the county isn’t – and hasn’t been – opposed to multi-purpose roadways. But it wasn’t until local cyclists bonded together and began pushing county officials to make the community more bike-friendly that their cause got any traction.
“It’s only recently that the local cycling advocates have stepped up their efforts,” Sobczak said, “so it’s more in our scope now.”
In June, with Sobczak and the Vero Cycling group leading the charge, the county earned its first-ever designation as a “Bicycle-Friendly Community” from the Washington, DC-based League of American Cyclists, founded in 1880 with the mission of creating a bike-friendly America.
The designation was celebrated by local cyclists, but both Aaron and Sobczak see such recognition as a starting point, a foundation on which to build a more bike-friendly community.
That’s why Aaron and the local cycling community were so puzzled by – and disappointed with – the county’s failure to install a bike lane along the newly rebuilt and expanded 66th Avenue.
“That never should’ve been allowed to happen,” Aaron said. “Apparently, the county’s public works department has had a long-standing policy of not constructing bike lanes unless somebody requests them, and I guess nobody did.
“So our goal now it to have the Comprehensive Plan amended to address this issue,” he added. “We want to make sure, legally, that something like this doesn’t happen again.”
Much of the county’s future road work will consist of rebuilding projects that, in many cases, won’t allow for Complete Street upgrades because there’s not enough room or the additional right-of-way can’t be acquired.
“We’ll certainly try to incorporate the concept into our road designs, but sometimes it just isn’t feasible,” Sobczak said. “When you’re working with roads built in the 1950s and ’60s and trying to retro-fit them to accommodate the Complete Streets concept, it’s not always realistic.
“Either there’s just not enough space or it would be cost-prohibitive to buy the land we need in those neighborhoods.”
Many sections of Old Dixie Highway, a popular road among local cyclists, fall under those circumstances, Sobczak added.
But 66th Avenue didn’t.
So Aaron asked the county to convert the existing paved shoulders on the newly constructed segments of the road into bike lanes, even though they’re only about four feet wide – barely enough to accommodate the addition.
In fact, Aaron sent County Commissioner Bob Solari a written proposal detailing the need for a bike lane on 66th Avenue, and the board has endorsed the project.
“We’ve already put in a work order,” Matson said. “There will be bike-lane signs and logos painted on the pavement every half-mile from 49th Street to Oslo Road.”
Aaron’s proposal said the designated bike lanes would:
- Keep cyclists out of lanes of traffic.
- Alert motorists that cyclists may be present on the road.
- Make right turns safer for motorists and cyclists.
- Reduce the possibility that cyclists will ride against the flow of traffic.
Aaron said the Complete Streets concept has been incorporated into the county’s Bike-Ped Plan, which falls under the MPO’s jurisdiction and has the support of Matson and Sobczak.
“We know it’s not feasible to incorporate the Complete Streets concept everywhere,” Aaron said. “But where it is feasible, let’s do it.”