Residents along Florida Park Drive have complained for years that the amount of traffic causes noise pollution and exposes them to exhaust fumes.
Palm Coast officials are debating whether to add stop signs on Florida Park Drive and will consider hiring an engineering consultant to do a traffic study of the road.
Councilwoman Heidi Shipley sparked the discussion during a council workshop Tuesday. Florida Park Driv, a two-lane road, is a throughway in Palm Coast’s F-section, a heavily populated residential neighborhood.
The 1.9-mile artery snakes from Palm Coast Parkway north to Palm Harbor Parkway. James F. Holland Park sits on the south end within blocks of a retail center while, the Portuguese American Cultural Center and other commercial venues are located near Florida Park Drive’s northern terminus.
On average, 8,600 cars travel the road each day, according to a Florida Department of Transportation traffic data report. That amounts to more than 3.1 million cars per year.
Residents along Florida Park Drive have complained for years that the amount of traffic causes noise pollution and exposes them to exhaust fumes. Shipley said she saw such a problem solved by adding stop signs to a similar road in her home state of Massachusetts. She and Councilman Steve Nobile said they want to erect two or three stop signs near the south end of Florida Park Drive as a way to deter some cars from traveling the road.
“We want to try and move some traffic and push it to an area like Old Kings Road, where the through traffic should be going,” Nobile said. “We can’t do it by hindering the local traffic in any way — the people who live in the F-section. And second is we want to try and reduce both the noise and the pollution in the area.”
City officials in 2015 opted not to hire traffic engineers to assess traffic on Florida Park Drive due to cost concerns. That year, an in-house study showed no evidence of a traffic problem.
City Manager Jim Landon said he will inquire about that traffic study and the council agreed to consider a contract to hire the consultant at next Tuesday’s meeting.
Steven Carr, who lives along Florida Park Drive, has complained to city officials about the issue for years and even has a website dedicated to the traffic flow situation. He called it a “two-edged sword,” noting council members must weigh “whether we protect safety or whether we protect people's health.” Carr cited a city policy on pollution that prohibits air quality that puts a strain on quality of life and property.
“I can tell you, it is preventing enjoyment of my property and it is (affecting) my life because I know that when I’m out in my yard and all that traffic is coming through, it makes it difficult to breath sometimes.”
Nobile said he’s pushed for solutions to the problem for three years and heard viable options, such as planting shrubbery that can “eat emissions” or paving the road with asphalt that would reduce sound and limit wear and tear on cars.
“The problem is nobody does it," he said. "We just sit here, we talk about and they’re good ideas.”
Councilman Nick Klufas said a car, after coming to a stop, generally emits about three times the amount of emissions it does while in motion. He calculated that adding three stop signs means the city would have to reduce traffic on the road nine-fold to prevent a net increase in pollution levels.
Nobile disagreed, arguing it doesn’t account for the distance it would take cars to pick up speed after stopping at a stop sign.
Councilman Robert Cuff said he doesn’t believe adding a two or three stop signs would be enough to deter traffic, and seemed to agree with Klufas’ assessment that it may have the unintended consequence of increasing pollution.
“Florida Park Drive’s problem is it’s a long through road that connects two other through roads,” Cuff said. “It serves a lot of residential property in Palm Coast.”