Creating Livable Communities: Safer and More Walkable
The Flamingo Park Neighborhood Association will Kick-off its Pedestrian Safety Project at a meeting on Monday, September 14th, 5:00 pm, at The Seymour, 945 Pennsylvania Avenue. The University of North Carolina Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center is working with 15 communities across the country to help make neighborhoods more walkable and safer for pedestrians.
Participating communities will test the newly developed guidebook entitled A Resident’s Guide for Creating Safe and Walkable Communities.
At the meeting we will overview an introductory section of The Resident’s Guide, which is available online at: http://flamingomb.org/ResidentGuideOne.pdf.
The Flamingo Park Neighborhood Association will use the Resident’s Guide as a resource to develop greater awareness, to provide public education and to stimulate effective advocacy in support of pedestrian safety projects and programs, including advocacy for pedestrian amenities in the CMB Flamingo Street Improvement ROW program.
The Flamingo Park Neighborhood participates in this program in order to increase community awareness, public education and effective advocacy to build and sustain a more walkable community, safer for pedestrians. Related Capital Improvement Projects offer the opportunity to advance an agenda supporting a more walkable community, safer for pedestrians. The Flamingo Park Neighborhood Association is providing community support for a program of neighborhood improvements. These include streetscape improvements aimed at providing greater pedestrian amenities. Community recommendations evolved from a series of community charrettes and workshops. These have now been formulated into a proposed Streetscape Improvement Program authorized by the City Commission with plans being finalized by the City’s Capital Improvement Projects Department.
Highlights of the Capital Improvement Program advocated by the community include:
• Improve the way Flamingo Park relates to the community; Improve the neighborhood connection to Biscayne Bay; Create a strong pedestrian link from Lincoln Road to Espanola Way to Ocean Drive;
• Improve the tree canopy throughout the neighborhood with native shade trees to protect pedestrians from sun, rain, and off-course autos; Provide pedestrian scale street lighting throughout the neighborhood;
• Slow down vehicular traffic on neighborhood streets, narrowing traffic lanes, and introducing other traffic calming measures (medians, roundabouts, bulbouts, street trees, wider sidewalks, and special treatments and crosswalks;
• Introduce street corner bump-outs to facilitate a shorter pedestrian crossing of traffic lanes;
• Create a pedestrian Safe-way from Fisher-Fienberg School to Flamingo Park;
• Introduce neighborhood entrances and pathfinder signage;
• Repair and replace street pavement, sidewalks, curb & gutter and cross walks.
