Palmetto planning to make 10th Avenue West pedestrian-friendly
By CARL MARIO NUDI
Jeff Burton, Palmetto Community Redevelopment Agency director, researches information on the Florida Department of Transportation Complete Streets program..
Tenth Avenue West at one time was the center of activity in Palmetto where the businesses, shops, parks, and a library and schools attracted crowds of pedestrians to the wide avenue.
After the realignment of the traffic patterns through the city, Eighth Avenue West became the principle thoroughfare leading to the Green Bridge.
But two planned projects promise to recreate the pedestrian-friendly environment when completed.
The Palmetto Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) has been working with other government agencies to develop plans for two Florida state programs, Complete Streets and Florida SUN Trails.
“The CRA, FDOT (Florida Department of Transportation), MPO (Sarasota-Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization), and SWFWMD (Southwest Florida Water Management District) worked together to redevelop our Riverside Park (as part of a multi-modal project),” said CRA Director Jeff Burton. “At the same time FDOT put together a statewide Complete Streets design manual and MPO suggested doing the multi-model plan as part of a Complete Streets project for 10th Avenue.
“Palmetto will be the first Complete Streets project in FDOT District One,” Burton said.
After two community town hall meetings last year to gather public input, the state was now completing a feasibility study.
The study will look at what the existing conditions are and the potential for the changes gathered from the public’s input, said Mike Maholtz, who recently retired after 20 years with the MPO and is now working for the Palmetto CRA.
“Tenth Avenue West is pretty automobile dominate,” Maholtz said. “The streets and intersections are very wide, and this doesn’t favor someone who is walking.
“Also there isn’t any shade,” he said.”The project will remodel and redo 10th Avenue to make it easy to use no matter if you’re walking, riding a bicycle, or in an automobile.
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The sidewalks at Riverside Park are constructed with a paver brick system that allows rainwater to seep into the ground and be filtered before it enters the storm water system. A similar system may be used for the multi-modal trail along 10th Avenue West.
“We can do this in several ways, such as adding shade trees, benches, and other pedestrian-friendly amenities,” Maholtz said. “And the project may include traffic circles at Sixth and Seventh streets.”
The FDOT Complete Streets program was developed to “improve safety, support economic development and create quality places through integrated land use and transportation,” according to the state agency website.
The program promotes a more pedestrian friendly street and that will help to enhance access to jobs and education, increase property values, and spur economic development with job creation, Complete Street advocates contend.
Burton said the multi-modal trail will continue from Riverside Park east to 10th Avenue West, then north along 10th Avenue West to 17th Street West, and continue east to Eighth Avenue West and end at the Manatee County Area Transit station.
“FDOT wanted to put (the multi-model trail) along Eighth Avenue,” the CRA director said, “but we convinced them to move it to 10th Avenue to work with the Complete Street program.
“It’s an alternative for pedestrians to travel and 10th is better suited for the project because it’s wider,” he said.
The city designated 10th Avenue West as one of the corridors for Palmetto’s trail networks, Maholtz said.
“To accommodate this a sidewalk on one side of the street could be 8-feet wide,” he said.
The multi-model project on 10th Avenue West will be a continuation of the Riverside Park project completed two years ago.
That project included a shared-use path, improved drainage, installation of decorative lighting, reconfiguring the parking lot, using a special paver block system for sidewalks, new signs, and lush landscaping, at a cost of nearly $4 million.
The paver brick system allowed rainwater to seep into the ground and be filtered before it enters the stormwater system, eliminating the need for large retention ponds.
The Complete Streets project planned for 10th Avenue West may include a roundabout at the Sixth Street West intersection. The Historical Carnegie Library and Palmetto Historical Park are on the right, with the Palmetto Library shown on the left.
Because of the low impact stormwater processing system and the use of bio-swales, SWFWMD provided the CRA with grant monies to complete the project.
The plan for the 10th Avenue West multi-modal and Complete Streets projects may include some of the same stormwater management techniques.
The Complete Streets project planned for 10th Avenue West includes wider sidewalks, landscaping, bike lanes, and other improvements to make the business area between Fourth and Fifth streets more pedestrian-friendly.
Burton said the MPO will fund the project, while the FDOT will do the construction.
The multi-modal portion of 10th Avenue West will be a portion of the larger trail plan within the city, which will connect to a larger multi-county trail system
The Palmetto trail plan will connect with a proposed trail Manatee County planned to construct from Parrish to Lincoln Park at 17th Street East and U.S. 41.
The larger multi-county trail project will eventually connect trail systems in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties.
“The goal is to fund a package of mobility-enhancement strategies that directly relate to local government redevelopment strategies that improve walking,” according to a MPO report.
Burton said the city’s trail project will be done in phases.
“It’s better to do in stages because of the $10- to $12-million cost,” he said.
Burton said the Complete Streets and multi-modal projects will use downtown aesthetics, which fits with the Downtown Design Code in effect.
He said FDOT will start a Project Development and Environment (PD&E) study for the Complete Streets project, and then the design work can begin.
Construction could start in 2020-21, Burton said.
“It will be an efficient design with transportation investments and to make it attractive to investors to come to Palmetto,” he said. “Yet we’ll keep the small-town feel.”
For more information on the Palmetto Community Redevelopment Agency, visit its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/palmettocra/.
More information about the FDOT Complete Streets program can be found at www.flcompletestreets.com.