Monday, May 11, 2015

WEST PALM BEACH CONSIDERS SKYWAY TO ASSIST PEDESTRIANS ON OKEECHOBEE BLVD.

This is sort of a funny one, but has some serious issues as well. For years the restaurants and merchants at City Place have waiting for the hotel across the street. They imagined it bringing thousands more customers through their doors. Now it is getting very close to opening and they just realized that it is really difficult and dangerous to cross the street to get there! SO, in part thanks to a 1,500 person citizen’s petition (all business owners at City Place?), Palm Beach County is now discussing with the traffic engineers and Florida Dept. of Transportation about the possibility of building a walkway over Okeechobee Blvd., the 8 lane street. This is something that if adopted, could be seen in many other instances in several different cities throughout the region. The trend towards walkability is running hot now and many cities are looking for ways to make that happen. There is an amazing and comprehensive plan being hatched now for the Cypress Creek area (now rebranded as Ft. Lauderdale North or Uptown) that you will be seeing soon. They will be turning the 8 lane Cypress Creek Rd. into 2 four lane roads to increase access for pedestrians. One can only hope that all the cities are looking at each other for ideas and that they can take the best of these and implement them all over the South Florida region to create a standard of walkability. Aside from the improved safety and aesthetics, there is a significant health benefit involved, getting people more exercise. And it gets more cars off the road, helping the environment. What is not to love? As always thanks for reading and have a great day.

Skywalk over Okeechobee Boulevard at CityPlace could become reality

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