"I work in Perdido Key and feel the new round a bout is unsafe. Please look into it."
"That has got to be the worst constructed road improvement that I have seen done in Escambia County. I’d like to think that you and others in your position took the time to drive through this to see for yourselves how many lives may be effected by this. We have our snow bird that come down every year and some may have never seen or know how to maneuver a roundabout. It’s too tight for trucks with trailers, RV’s, tractor trailers. The lighting at night, or lack there of is just asking for accidents at night let alone those that will come during the day and we aren’t even in season. What happens then when thousands are using it this summer."
"I drove through the roundabout and hit curbs, had bad
anxiety, ect. It is definitely hazardous to all driving through it. Please do
something about it and fast!"
"Round about REALLY!"
"Too
narrow and too small. Dangerous! Unsafe. Redesign this, please."
"I am a citizen of Escambia county near Gulf Beach Hwy. I have family who lives on Inerarity Point, and I travel to Johnson’s Beach regularly. Getting straight to the point, I believe it would be in the county’s best interest to install lights IMMEDIATELY! I traveled the round about and I almost missed it because it was so dark!"
Concerning the points brought forward by citizens regarding the newly constructed roundabout at Perdido Key Drive and Johnson Beach Road, we offer the following:
- "New
street lighting is included in the project and is in process for
installation to supplement the existing streetlight at the
intersection. Lighting will be installed in advance on Perdido Key
Drive and at the circle to supplement what is already in place. We
have executed lighting agreements with Florida Power and Light (FPL) and are
awaiting installation by their contractors. Unfortunately, the
timing of the storms in South Florida earlier this year has exacerbated
delays in their scheduling. We have new street light requests
throughout the county this calendar year that are also delayed. During
construction, extra temporary lighting funded by the District One
Commissioner was put in place due to the darkness around the Johnson Beach
Road detour area. That temporary lighting was removed upon
completion of the circle and its opening to traffic.
- Additional signage is in store for the roundabout. There will be signs at each entrance to the circle notating the direction of travel and the exit locations with the full street name included. These signs are quite large, generally 6ft tall by 10ft wide. Because of the sign’s size and needed breakaway capabilities due to where they are installed, they require a robust support system that has a delayed delivery schedule. The full street names on the signs are optional by standard, but we felt it important to be very specific with directions due to the number of tourists that visit the area during season. Here are the proposed signs:
- The
channelizing islands and center truck apron will be a terra cotta colored
herringbone stamped asphalt pattern. This will help those areas to
stand out to the motorist.
- Three additional signs are on order for the interior of the circle that convey the requirement to go to the right within the circle. These will be 30”x24” and will face incoming traffic to the circle.
- The
roundabout was designed by a licensed professional engineer in the State
of Florida. During the design process, a simulation program known as
AutoTurn was used to test the ability of a truck/trailer to be able to
navigate the circle. These simulations showed the design vehicle
could successfully navigate the circle. It is important to note the
center of the circle has a paved truck ramp to facilitate the runoff of trailer
wheels. This is very common practice in design and construction of
roundabouts worldwide. We have surveyed the constructed circle to
find it is built according to the dimensions on the approved plans.
- Roundabouts
are not designed for high-speed maneuvers. They are designed to a
tighter, narrower size than the traffic circles of last century to keep
traffic moving consistently, albeit slowly through an intersection.
The physical dimensions of the entrance/exit flares and the circle
pavement width and diameter are such to require a slow speed
movement. The speed through a roundabout should never exceed 25 mph
as indicated by the signage and pavement markings. There is signage
present 300 feet in advance that indicates the roundabout is ahead, signage
indicating the speed approaching and within the circle is limited to 25
mph, signage indicating the direction of circulation within the circle,
signage directing motorists to yield to traffic in the circle, and signage
indicating the street names at the entrance/exit points of the circle.
- Annually
the County assists the National Park Service (NPS) by providing variable
message boards at the intersection. Park Rangers have the ability to
turn the signs to face the motoring public to indicate with the park is
full. A more permanent solution is on the horizon as the NPS ordered
message boards last year that will be installed in a more permanent
fashion that they will be able to control regarding message and
timing. The County will be assisting the NPS this year with the
installation and implementation.
Chris Phillips, PE, CPM, County Transportation Engineer"
16 comments:
More lights, more signs, and now message boards. Can that intersection get any more aesthetically unappealing?
Wait... don't answer that. I don't think I really want to know.
It is an improvement, and much safer. The left turn to Johnson Beach was no good. Traffic Engineers, kinda know what they’re doing…
As far as lighting, maybe check to see if your headlights are working?
Alice Hurst Neal, as somebody who has hung on ECW for the last how many years, and done nothing constructive to halt any of Doug's initiatives on the Key, yeah, you probably don't want to know. Because you are the poster child for clueless out there. Somebody who saw what was going on was wrong, and yet continued to politic on that site and give weight to the admins and moderators and flying monkeys who were helping Doug wreck the Key.
If you want to know who helped with that, look in the mirror.
Oh and also, Alice--you and I were in communication for the better part of three years on what was going on down there. I gave you ALL the information needed to combat the disinformation on that forum, only to watch you fall into the groupthink over there time and again.
The problem on the Key isn't the nimbys who want to block the public. The problem is people like you who recognized the issue, but didn't have the guts to combat the ECW problem. You knew. I gave you all the information. You did nothing with it, except to bitch in hindsight.
So quit pretending as if this is a failure of knowledge. There isn't a thing that is happening out there that I didn't give you advance warning about. You just couldn't stand to go against the ECW vibe. Now you're bitching about the things I tried to warn you about.
That's your fail. On you. At any time you could have taken the information I was giving you and start to fight what was happening. You didn't, because you don't have the courage to do it, and because you need to feel like you're an "in" member over there. Your late breaking revelations on Doug are pathetic enough. I gave you the playbook years ago, and you failed to do anything with it. So please don't try to pretend like you're some kind of stalwart advocate. All you do is bitch and moan, but you wouldn't dare raise your voice on the very forum that was trying to force through the things you claim to be against.
On word: cowaradice. Another word: needy. Final word: pointless.
Melissa Pino, you are a sick, disgusting, hate field human being. How dare you personally attack another person in this manner. Alice said NOTHING about you and you go full on bat s%#! crazy on her. Your life must be completely empty.
FILLED. Gotta hate those automatic recommendations.
Clearly her life is both empty and pathetic.
"Gave" me information? Phhhht!!! More like blew up my email for months at a time, just HOPING I would post some of your hate-filled, nonsensical drivel on ECW.
Newsflash, MP. I never read half of the garbage you sent and the other half read as though it was written by a 16 year old with daddy issues and a substance abuse problem.
Get over yourself. You were banned from ECW years ago and everyone knows you're still bitter about it. It shows up every time you post and every time you speak. *yawn*
Try happy. It's pretty amazing.
My parents are snowbirds at Beach Colony as we speak (it's the 3-tower complex closest to the traffic circle), so after dinner each night we drive thru the traffic circle to get home. It would have made sense for the appropriate signs to be up BEFORE the circle was "operational." IMO, you don't leave directional signage off and then expect those unfamiliar with the area to navigate it without issue. Secondly, for those who glibly say use your headlights, it is VERY dark. There's only one dimmed turtle-friendly (orange) light there, and the curbed, center areas of the circle are currently black asphalt, so it looks exactly like regular road ahead. They were landscaping it in some areas yesterday so I'm hoping that will help direct the sight-line.
There are 50 construction barrels there now helping to dictate flow, I hope those don't have the remain on a permanent basis. Theyre such an eyesore.
My take, if you haven't driven through it don't comment. It's never as black and white as 'use your headlights.' The people commenting on the safety have valid points. Not everyone complains for no reason.
Thanks for confirming that you did zero--nothing--with all of the information I shared with you about how parking, overdevelopment, and stolen beach access was going to come like a steam train Doug's second term.
It's too bad that I mistook you for one of the more reasonable people on that forum; perhaps if I had been sending that info to somebody who cared enough to do something with it, some of the things that you constantly bitch and moan about could have been forestalled. As it is, it took advocates from outside the Key to get done what we possibly could with exposing a bunch of things, and positive material impacts, because apparently none of you had the courage or wherewithal to do anything about it. Other than fawn all over the administrator and moderators of a forum that was deeply invested in propping up the commissioner who brought all that damage to pass.
News flash Alice: nobody gives a crap about getting kicked off ECW. You guys are a laughing stock at the County, in the City, and none of you can impact votes or effect policy in any way, as that forum is anathema with most decision makers. Even the elected officials who contribute there from time to time speak ill of it in private. It's nothing but a tool for disinformation and screed. As your illustrious track record in not ever impacting anything materially well shows.
And when I think of a person who is amazingly happy in their life, you hardly pop up on the top of the list. Your increasing bitterness about what you and the others on that forum allowed to transpire down on the Key has been apparent for years, and your cognitive dissonance with playing in the very sandbox that wrecked your backyard is apparent in most of your posts. Your cowardice with never being able to mobilize the information I was sending you on that forum--because when it comes down to it you're afraid of getting kicked out of the mean girls' club--really did contribute negatively to what happened on the ground out there. That's your cross to bear. I at least tried, as did a lot of other people. With a handful of residents down there willing to deal with the disinformation on that forum, we might have had a lot more success than we did.
MP, I see that you deleted some of your hate-filled rampage from yesterday. Sobered up? Good for you!
"No one cares about getting kicked off ECW"? You. You care. You can't let it go.
You can deliver as many packages of negativity and malice as you want. I'm never going to bring them inside.
Merry Christmas!
Before I even realized you had replied, Alice (at 2:06 AM--talk about the pot calling the kettle on the late night), I asked Commissioner Bergosh to remove the second post, because I recognized that my anger at your hypocrisy had gotten to me, and that I had come too hard on it as a result. I don't think there's any way for a commenter to delete their comment here? So yes, I regretted that I had let my disgust at your pointless carping get the best of me, and requested to have the second comment removed. Pretty sure that's only the 2nd or 3rd time I've done that, in all the years I've been commenting here.
I'm not even on Facebook any more. Haven't been for a couple of months; doubt I'll come back. Why on earth would I care I'm not on ECW?
What, because I was one of the hundreds (and hundreds) of people blocked from that site, I finally couldn't take it any more and disabled my account in agony?
I wonder if you realize how absurd that sounds. I doubt it.
The only reason I ever took up a Facebook account to begin with was to fight Doug where he lived (on social media), in Spring of 2018. With him soundly defeated, I am happy--amazingly--to be off social media networks. I'm so grateful to have met so many wonderful people over the last few years, and formed solid relationships that don't require Facebook presence to maintain.
So I'll continue to work on local issues I'm passionate about, and most likely continue to win some and lose some. You'll most likely continue to kvetch and howl at the moon per all the problems you failed to ever even try to impact, with zero material net result.
The latter seems a pretty strange definition of a happy place to me, but to each her own. While I could care less about not being on ECW (along with anyone else with a brain in her head), it did make me really sad that you never came around to understand how badly you were getting played. I had always gauged you as somebody smarter than that--I remember the day I said, "this Alice person is a really smart cookie--they're not going to keep the wool over her eyes for long." I'm really sorry I was wrong about that. The Key might have less damage for Commissioner Bergosh to try to straighten out if I had realized earlier that you would never be able to get it together for any serious positive results.
I think everyone knows why you were thumped off ECW MP and it wasn't because you have flawed view points. Comments full of hate and profanity usually occurring after happy hour is why you got booted.
Censorship is a real thing.
Melissa was taken off ECW because she told Jaqueline everyone knew the site was an arm of the Underhil campaign in 2018, and Underhil was afraid his safe space was invaded, and he was afraid of Melissa. So they didn't give her a platform. It didn't go along with the group think.
Any chance of getting that signage sooner rather than later? I drove thru there yesterday when a guy pulled out of Johnson Beach Rd., & turned left into the eastbound lane (wrong way!) of the roundabout. Luckily he let me clear the circle first.
7:53--It's on the way
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