ORMOND BEACH — From 2011 to 2015 there were more crashes on Granada Boulevard than any other road in all of Volusia and Flagler counties, according to a 2017 River-to-Sea Transportation Planning Organization report.
Stretching from the edge of the Atlantic Ocean through the heart of Ormond Beach, the road serves as the city's single main east/west corridor. And on it are five of the 10 most-accident-prone sections of roadway in Volusia and Flagler counties. The report also found that Granada contained three of the area’s 10 most crash-prone intersections. Nearly 360 crashes were recorded on a particular busy stretch between U.S. Highway 1 and North Williamson Boulevard.
While Granada has logged more crashes than other roads, that doesn't mean it's more dangerous. In terms of crash severity, or how bad the accident was, Granada was not listed anywhere among the top 10 road segments, said Lois Bollenback, River-to-Sea Transportation Planning Organization executive director, adding that severe or deadly crashes are more likely to occur in rural areas where people tend to go faster.
The reason Granada stands out with so many crashes is because it's so heavily traveled, with some D-grade sections of road breaking 35,000 vehicles a day, according to a Volusia County 2016 average annual daily traffic count.
The increased traffic load along Granada has “stressed” the road to the point it operates at a “strained level of service,” said Shawn Finley, Ormond Beach's deputy city engineer.
Frustrated residents who drive the congested artery already know this. City officials, looking to appease them, have their hopes pinned on a solution: a $31.6 million, 1.65-mile extension of Hand Avenue.
“The way the city is laid out, there’s no other possible relief road that runs east and west for Granada Boulevard, so Hand Avenue is the only option,” Ormond Beach Mayor Bill Partington said. “You hate to have to put all your eggs in one basket, but there’s just nothing else that can be done. You can’t really add too many more lanes to Granada.”
A 2008 Florida Department of Transportation sponsored study confirmed Partington's sentiments and found that even widening Granada to eight lanes in some parts wouldn't curb future traffic demands, which by 2025 will exceed the maximum number of vehicles allowed.
The study offered a number of recommendations that could resolve the issue:
Extending Hand Avenue four lanes more than a mile and a half west from Williamson Boulevard over Interstate 95 to Tymber Creek Road;
Widening Hand Avenue to four lanes from Shangri La Drive to Clyde Morris Boulevard;
Widening Granada to six lanes between Breakaway Trail to Williamson;
Replacing the Granada bridge that spans the Tomoka River.
For now, extending Hand Avenue west is just an idea, and the city has submitted a request to conduct a feasibility study to the River-to-Sea Transportation Planning Organization.
If approved, the new study would look at potential extension routes and how to mitigate environmental concerns. From there the project would need to be listed on the organization’s priority list before further studies and planning could be conducted, Finley said.
If a final project were approved, rights of way from landowners would need to be acquired. However, the area is undeveloped so homeowners and businesses would not see much of an impact, Finley said.
Not all residents favor the project and some have said it will actually worsen traffic.
"The extension is proposed as an alternate route to take traffic off Granada Boulevard, but it will only be an easier route into town for Margaritaville," Ormond Beach resident Julie Sipes said in an emailed statement. "All that traffic will likely still end up on Granada after turning left on Williamson, Clyde Morris, or Nova Road. All alternatives to Granada would send traffic through residential areas."
Former Ormond Beach Commissioner Jeff Boyle agreed and said the project would be too costly.
"The Hand Avenue extension has always represented a great benefit to developers of lands to the west but very little benefit to the Ormond Beach road system," Boyle said in an emailed statement. "It is wrong for our elected officials to mislead Ormond residents with the idea that such a future extension will provide an alternate remedy to Granada gridlock or that there will ever be enough funding to make it happen."
While Partington and the City Commission have recently come under fire for what residents have called excessive development along Granada, he said the need for the Hand Avenue extension wasn't born from growth along the road, but rather, from the influx of traffic pouring in from Daytona.
“I would point out that the growth isn’t happening in Ormond Beach, it’s happening in Daytona and we’re getting the impact form it, so we have to do something or we’ll end up with gridlock,” Partington said.
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Granada Avenue is a state road and Hand Avenue is a county road and so funding for the projects would likely come from federal, state and other sources including the proposed ½-cent sales tax that could go before voters in November, Finley said.
With actual road construction not likely for years, Bollenback said the city could implement other measures to help control traffic including smart signals, which adjust their signals based on traffic patterns to move traffic more efficiently.
Funding for the signals is approved and construction should begin in 2019 or 2020, she said.