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The Village of Palmetto Bay announced in a Jan. 29 newsletter that the village had been awarded a “Safe Streets & Roads for All” federal grant from the office of U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar for District 27 to produce the Safe Streets Palmetto Bay Action Plan, the village’s first comprehensive roadmap for implementing Complete Streets and eliminating and preventing severe traffic crashes.
The initial public workshop will take place in the Edward and Arlene Feller Community Room at Ludovici Park on Wednesday, Feb. 26, at 6 p.m. There also will be meetings on Mar. 20 and 22.
Christina Cotto, grants administrator for the village, stated the reason for the meetings and the overall plan.
“The village is committed to supporting Complete Streets for all and a Vision Zero goal.
This project will allow the village to update its existing bicycle and pedestrian master plans, analyze current traffic and crash data, look at linking land use policies around existing transit service and set minimum standards for village roadways based on their FDOT Context Sensitive Classification System (except US1),” Cotto said.
“The Village is also actively updating its State Comprehensive Plan where strategies, goals, objectives and policies will be added. With this grant, the village intends to create one unified complete transportation guidebook that will incorporate all planning studies, special area plans, designs, and street classifications to encourage and implement complete streets towards our goal of vision zero.”
Cotto said they will include public input and will specifically target those areas within the village defined by USDOT as “underserved communities.” The village also plans to hire a diverse team of professionals.
“We look to study areas of past redlining and roadway improvement projects to see how existing barriers can be renovated, reconstructed, or mitigated to allow for greater access to transit, medical care, food and pharmacies for individuals’ daily needs,” Cotto said.
She said that since Palmetto Bay prides itself on being known as the “Village of Parks” it will use the grant to build on its Parks Master Plan and provide safe routes to parks prioritizing alternative transportation methods to access parks from surrounding neighborhoods. All trails and pathways will be analyzed to implement the best practices for safety, lighting and crossing locations.
“The village has many top-rated schools within its boundaries and this grant will be used to facilitate a Safe Routes to Schools study of all public K-12 schools,” Cotto said.
Bicycle and pedestrian mobility also is an important quality of life factor connecting neighborhoods.
“We look to improve walking, biking, and rolling access for individuals with disabilities as a total percentage of our overall transportation system,” Cotto said. “The village is committed to reducing roadway fatalities and environmental sustainability within our boundaries with the continued implementation of roundabouts at all two-lane centerline and half centerline road intersections.”
They also plan to coordinate with Miami-Dade County on improved access to the South Dade Busway and analyzing the location of bus stops to facilitate the greatest number of bus routes and correspond with proposed surrounding land uses.
“All together this proposed document will provide the village with a roadmap for future investments, repairs and renovations to achieve Complete Streets for all and Vision Zero,” Cotto said. “We look forward to having one unified planning and street design document that the village will utilize for all future development projects.”
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