They voted to take the extra funding from other city projects.

Anyone with any doubts about whether this is a reasonable or appropriate use of taxpayers’ dollars has only to take a drive up to Grandview Terrace in the 1600 block of E Ridgewood Street and look at the three minicircles in a row.

Crest Lake Park, at the intersection of Cleveland Street and Lake Drive, should be signalized for traffic to stop, thereby allowing pedestrians, cyclists, children and those with disabilities who use the sidewalk on Lake Drive to access the park. The median planned on Cleveland at Crest Avenue needs a safe path in line with Crest Lake Park’s north sidewalk.

Cleveland Street is a collector road with many pedestrians and cyclists. Global experience, the Florida Department of Transportation, and the access board advise that a road like Cleveland Street, with many pedestrians and cyclists, is an inappropriate site for roundabouts.

Install none or the two roundabouts at their recommended locations at Saturn and Corona and see if those conform to city needs. Restudy the other traffic calming features.

Roundabouts are impractical, inconvenient and expensive. Stop signs and traffic lights are a lot less expensive. Roundabouts and circles are removed in many places because of dangerous problems.

Here is information from Clearwater traffic calming engineer Ken Sides’ impact study:

“Participants in the Skycrest Traffic Calming Design Charrette attended a three- to four-hour training class at the first session on a Saturday morning, where they became qualified citizen- designers. Applying what they had learned, they worked together to create the Skycrest Traffic Calming Plan at the second session. … The six roundabouts, medians and all other elements of the project were proposed by the residents themselves, none by city staff or its consultants.”

Mayor Hibbard and his council chose to follow people who had three to four hours of classes instead of being guided by our city engineers with decades of experience and expertise. These changes could adversely affect us all and last 20 years and cost many millions.
Why is Mayor Hibbard pushing for it while other states and other countries are getting rid of these roundabouts and minicircles?
We do not want to have to pay for
Hibbard’s Folly.

In 2008, 8 years after the neighborhood petition, which Clearwater politicians claim reached 65% consensus (but only by eliminating many property owners in the boundaries of the plan – actual vote was 48% and many have moved away now leaving those who voted as only 33%) it is now coming up for bid (http://www.clearwater-fl.com/gov/depts/pwa/engin/projects/TC-Skycrest.asp).

Since 2000, there is less need for traffic calming on E. Cleveland St.: City of Clearwater engineers traffic study in 2006 showed that 1500 – 2000 less vehicles per day travel on E. Cleveland St. because of a rerouting of traffic to Gulf to Bay Blvd. to a new beach bridge and because the intersecting Keene Rd. Extension did not bring more traffic as anticipated; also that long light intersection further bisected Cleveland St slowing traffic down.

Volume and Speed of vehicles has already been reduced. To further reduce speed the city leaders have not reduced the speed limit to 25 mph from the current 35 mph.
Some citizens, including one councilmember asked for this logical and simple speed reduction.

Before going to bid, the Skycrest Neighborhood Traffic Calming Plan will cost all the taxpayers’ of Clearwater a minimum of $3,0000,000.00$. This amount was figured on fuel costing around $2.50 per gallon. What will it cost with fuel costing $4.00 – $7.00 per gallon, upping the costs for concrete, asphalt, other materials, insurance and labor contracts.

City Manager William Horne has threatened to raise taxes or cut Firefighters’ jobs, police, libraries, parks and other important services to shave more than $9.2 million from the budget.-Clearwater Faces Tough Choices to Cut $9M in Budget, St. Petersburg Times, 2/28/2008.

Why consider this unnecessary plan now?

There is very good reason why unending controversy surrounds speed humps, in particular. They are meant to create discomfort for everyone, and harm to some. The US Access Board in Washington, DC has acknowledged that the devices cause lasting pain and injury to people with some disabilities. The same can occur to able bodied people for simply making the mistake of inadvertently not braking in time, or even speeding. Their effects are inequitable, depending on the type of vehicle one drives. There is not a single study that shows fire trucks and ambulances are not delayed by the devices.

There are many speed “calming” techniques, even beyond enforcement, that aren’t aimed at diverting traffic to someone else’s street and punishing people for driving vehicles. And, that’s what raised devices are for.

In regard to “roundabouts.” What has resulted from allowing true roundabouts, which work well in other countries, on US streets is the expansion of the definition to include a round island in any square intersection, regardless of intersection size, and where there is insufficient separation of vehicles or time to anticipate who got there first or the movement of the vehicle in the intersection (yes, intersection — a round obstruction in the middile of an intersection does not change the geometry of the intersection). There was a death at a traffic “circle” in Boulder on a street where there had never been a death before. But, the circle’s still there.

Gerald Wilde, retired professor at Queen’s University, wrote an article on “risk homeostasis.” In it, he aptly describes the change in traffic engineering philosophy that has occurred here and abroad. The goal of engineering street design was always to lessen the severity of the consequences of acccidental or risky driver behavior, Now, it’s to increase the severity of the consequences. i.e. speed humps and traffic circles

So guess what is already showing up again less than six months later? Yep, the divots are back.

I completely agree with this article that they aren’t about safety, but you would think that, if they are going to do it, they would factor in the additional road impact of the vehicle coming over the hump. Clearly, they didn’t and so it means replacing that section of road on a more frequent basis as the divots become pronounced over time.

Ridiculous.