City pauses plan for Daniels Road speed cushions

Proposed speed cushions on Daniels Road are causing concern among some Winter Garden residents. 

The speed cushions, originally placed on the road in front of the Bright Horizons day care, are part of the city of Winter Garden’s traffic-management policy/plan, which was first shared by City Manager Jon C. Williams at a City Commission meeting in March.

At that meeting, Williams said the city is planning to take a three-phased approach to address the traffic concerns: monitor, enforce and control. The plan does not require each of the phases to be done in succession; rather, it is all being worked on at the same time.

In terms of control, Williams discussed both permanent and temporary solutions to traffic calming.

Permanent solutions could include pedestrian islands, pedestrian pinch points and landscaping. Temporary solutions could include speed cushions or rubber curbing, which are usually easier to install and can be customizable, but they are not as appealing visually.

For temporary solutions, Williams said staff would like to test two pilots: speed cushions to test effectiveness on Daniels Road and curbing to narrow the road west of Williams Road on Marsh Road. 

However, the city now has paused the project to further consult with its traffic engineering division.

“The study will be completed following the completion of construction work by Duke Energy in the area,” Jim Monahan, city engineer, said. “The contractor doing the study is on standby meanwhile.”

PROJECT PLANS

Jayne Behrle, Winter Garden’s communications and marketing manager, said the city chose testing sites for the cushions based on speeding data.

“Not all of the speed cushions have been installed yet (because) the project is still under review,” she stated in an email. 

Behrle said a “speed cushion” has different characteristics than a “speed bump,” and “speed bumps” are not part of the plan. 

Speed bumps are traffic-calming devices that extend across all travel lanes without a break, the city said. They are generally short in width, raised to 3 to 3.5 inches, to slow cars down to about 5 mph.

“Speed cushions (are) traffic-calming devices that extend partially across travel lanes but leave gaps wide enough for emergency vehicles to straddle the cushions as to not slow response time,” Behrle said. “Similar to a speed table, the entire wheelbase of a vehicle (long in width) is raised to reduce traffic speed.”

However, Winter Garden resident Max Elliott, a professional traffic engineer, said he has concerns.  He emailed the city regarding the installed speed signage on Daniels.

“The two-mile stretch of Daniels Road between West Colonial Drive and Winter Garden-Vineland Road has a posted speed limit of 35 mph,” he wrote. “According to FDOT, this segment of roadway has an average annual daily traffic of 18,880 vehicles. This segment of roadway has four traffic signalized intersections with protected pedestrian crossings ... one poorly signed and located mid-block crosswalk at the intersection of New Stone Crest Boulevard but wide pathway sidewalks along the entirety of the roadway to keep bicycles, pedestrians and vehicles safely separated ... no home-facing properties, and traffic is separated by a raised median.”

According to city data, from June 15 to 28, there were 168 total traffic stops on Daniels Road and 112 citations issued.

Elliott believes the segment is a major arterial for Winter Garden and the surrounding areas.

“The introduction of speed bumps intended to restrict traffic speeds down to 5 mph is a very poor plan,” he said. “Daniels Road moves a lot of traffic, and by introducing a hazard in the middle of the roadway, it will cause significant delays, and reduce the level of service for motorists and first responders.”

According to the Florida Department of Transportation’s Florida Green Book, Elliott said speed bumps are considered an inappropriate traffic-calming treatment and should not be used on public roadways. 

Elliott said according to a crash report website, Signal Four Analytics, there were 62 reported crashes on the segment of roadway, with the majority being near Winter Garden Village.

Of the crashes, the report states 16 were reported to have injuries and 29 were rear-end crashes. There were two pedestrian-related crashes and one speed-related crash.

“Based on the above information, what are you trying to improve?” Elliott asked. “If only one speed-related crash has been recorded over the last three years and the most common type of crashes are rear-enders, adding speed bumps will only increase the number of crashes, lower the quality of the roadway and disrupt traffic flow along a major roadway. This is a bad idea for safety and efficiency.”

Elliott said Williams called him back June 22 and said the project has been paused. 

Since then, the signage has been removed.