OKEECHOBEE — Would narrower lanes cause drivers to slow down on State Road 70?

To reduce speeding on SR 70 East between Fourth Avenue and 16th Avenue, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) plans to narrow the lanes from 12 feet to 11 feet. To reduce traffic accidents, the FDOT plan would also add a median to prevent left turns at the intersection of SR 70 at Southeast 16th Avenue.

Okeechobee County officials offer a counterproposal: Reduce speeding and increase safety by adding a traffic light on SR 70 at Southeast 16th Avenue.

FDOT representatives visited the Okeechobee County Commission Dec. 10 meeting to go over their plans for SR 70 improvements and listen to local officials’ views on the project.

The project, as currently planned, would resurface State Road 70 East from Fourth Avenue to 17th Avenue (roughly from McDonald’s to just past W&W Lumber/Ace Hardware). Sidewalk improvements and some work to address safety concerns are also part of the project.

Megan Lerner, engineer, said the project was identified as a resurfacing project to improve the life of the pavement.

“As part of the resurfacing, we are going to be reducing the lane widths from 12 feet down to 11. With that reduction, we end up with an extra 2 feet of pavement,” Lerner explained. This will be striped to provide a shoulder between the traffic lanes and the curb.

She said the reduction in lane width will bring it more into compliance with the FDOT classification for that road, and will reduce speeding. She said the project team did a survey on the roadway and found that traffic speeds are exceeding the posted speed limits as well as exceeding the speed for which this section of SR 70 was designed.

“We do understand there are a high volume of trucks using this road,” she added. She said the extra 2 feet of shoulder will make the right-hand lane safer for the larger trucks to use.

All of the sidewalks along the corridor will also be reconstructed. “There are no bike lanes on this facility and we are not going to be adding them,” she said. She said the new sidewalk will include all of the ADA criteria. The sidewalks on the bridge will be widened to 6.5 feet on the north feet and 7 feet on the south side.

Several driveways will be modified, she continued. She said they recommend closing some driveways.

“Some of us have known this is in the works,” said Commissioner Brad Goodbread. “I haven’t found anybody yet who has concluded narrowing the lanes is good idea, especially with the truck traffic.

“There is a lot of truck traffic going from coast to coast,” he said. “I am at a loss at trying to figure out why that is a good idea.”

“The major reason we are reducing the lane width is to bring it into conformance with our context classifications You have a low-speed roadway, people are exceeding speeds, to change just the feel of this roadway, because people will slow down when the lanes are narrow ... 11 feet is still appropriate for the amount of truck traffic that we have,” said Lerner.

Commissioner Kelly Owens suggested using the data from the traffic study to adjust the speed limits and traffic lights. “Regulation of the traffic signals is going slow the traffic,” she said. “Then we won’t have semis sitting on top of each other and they are quite frequently going through there side by side,” she said. Owens said she drives on the road regularly and on many occasions has been “very uncomfortable with the lanes the width they are with semis next to me.”

Commission Chairman Terry Burroughs said they could learn a lesson from Indiantown. “People used to speed through there. Now people don’t speed through there at all because they have their deputies handing out tickets,” he pointed out.

“It is insane to shrink these lanes trying to slow people down,” said Burroughs. “People are going to go fast anyhow.” The only way you are going to stop them is for the police and deputies to slow them down by giving them a ticket, Burroughs said. In Indiantown, everybody slows down coming off the bridge, he continued, because the know they will get a ticket if they don’t.

“I know this is a state road and you are going to do what you want to do, and you’re just here to take our comments,” said Burroughs. “I can assure you that when you start doing this, we’re going to have a mess here.

“All of this analysis you are doing, in real life it doesn’t work in that particular area,” he said.

“Does anything we say or do here have any impact on this project?” asked Commissioner David Hazellief. He was assured their comments would be taken back to FDOT. If the point is to address problem areas, “why can’t you see the most important thing is the dogleg at city hall where the trucks run over the curb because the lanes are so narrow?” asked Hazellief.

Hazellief also voiced concerns about the plan to place a median at 16th Avenue, which would prevent left-hand turns at that intersection. Per the FDOT officials, this was proposed due to the number of traffic accidents at that intersection.

“If you close that full median cut at 16th, it’s going to a bad deal,” agreed Commissioner Brad Goodbread. He said residents of Bet-Her Acres use Southeast 16th Street to go into town.

“I hope you not just listen to us but heed our warnings,” said Goodbread. He said too often DOT takes comments but “everything is already set in stone. “I see a huge problem if that median cut is closed, and traffic has to start doing U-turns and going down tertiary streets,” he said.

“Why not look at a red light there if you want to slow traffic down?” asked Burroughs. He said a red light at 16th Avenue would really slow traffic down and also reduce accidents.

Commissioner Owens said she was worried that changing that median will force trucks onto residential streets.

“We’re sitting here on a daily basis, accountable to these people who we live with, work with, have known forever,” said Owens. She said sometimes the models used by FDOT don’t translate to the real situation.

“The reason that we get anxious when we have FDOT standing before us and wanting our input, the input seems to be asked for when there is the appearance the project has already been funded,” she added. “The end result is what we get back are validations based on algorithms.”

Hazellief said if Southeast 16th Avenue is right turn only, people are going to try to make u-turns at 17th Street even if it is not legal. “It’s human nature,” he said. There will be a line of people making U-turns against traffic coming over the bridge, which will result in more accidents.

Goodbread also asked for a protected left-turn arrow for westbound traffic at the post office. He said westbound postal trucks sometimes have to wait through several light changes to turn left get to the post office.

The resurfacing project is slated to be advertised for contractors in July 2022. Construction could start in the first quarter of 2023.

During the public comments period, City Administrator Marcos Montes De Oca said the city council has expressed the same concern about the lane width.