A Roundabout As a Potential, Long-Term Solution for Wallace Road and Dr. Phillips Boulevard

Concept Drawing for a Roundabout at Wallace Road and

Dr. Phillips Blvd. (Courtesy: Canin Associates)

Click HERE to link to a presentation to Orange County staff made by Billy Hattaway, VHB's Florida director of transporation planning, Jurgen Duncan, Canin's transportation planner, and myself on March 11, 2010.  The presentation includes data from a computer simulation conducted by a senior VHB traffic engineer, which demonstrated that a roundabout would significantly reduce driver delays during the afternoon rush hour.

After the meeting, I sent Commissioner Boyd the following email:

Dear Commissioner Boyd:

Thank you for attending yesterday's meeting with David Heath, [public works director ] Mark Massaro, and public works staff.  Billy Hattaway, P.E., VHB's Florida director of transportation planning, Jurgen Duncan, Canin's transportation planner, and I were grateful for the opportunity to present our proposal for a a roundabout feasibility study for the intersection of Wallace Road and Dr. Phillips Boulevard.  A roundabout could alleviate congestion, improve the area's aesthetics, and provide a safer environment for children walking between Dr. Phillips Elementary School and the Dr. Phillips YMCA.

Unfortunately, it appears we began our effort too late, and the budget contains too little money for a roundabout.  As explained below, my recommendation is that public works should proceed with the road widening in the short-term, while considering a roundabout as a long-term solution.

The Case for Road Widening as an Interim Solution

Mark Massaro presented a good case that funds for the additional lanes are available immediately for relief to motorists while the County budget lacks the larger funding necessary for a roundabout.  Public works accepted bids for the additional lanes on March 2, 2010, receiving a low bid of $127,992, significantly less than the $230,200 budgeted for the work. The City of Orlando provided Orange County with $100,000 for intersection improvements as a result of litigation between the Orange Tree HOA and Pulte Homes.  Childrens' Legacy Program funding will cover the balance.  Long term, the intersection needs mast arm traffic signals, which will cost at least $250,000.  (UPDATE: Public Works advises the cost is $200,000-225,000).  However, the County has no short-term requirement to incur that expense.

Engineering plans call for adding right-turn lanes on Wallace Road and Dr. Phillips Boulevard and extending the northbound left-turn lane on Dr. Phillips Boulevard.  The intersection is congested during peak hours (in part due to the multiple traffic signal movements).  We learned yesterday that the right turns account for about 30% of the traffic movements.  Therefore, the new lanes should provide relief for at least for a few years until enough motorists divert their travels from Sand Lake Road's congestion.  I was glad to see, based on our closer review of the engineering plans, that the additional right-turn lanes will not increase the pedestrian crossing distance on Dr. Phillips Boulevard, already at 115 feet.

The Case for a Roundabout as a Long-Term Solution

However, I remain concerned about pedestrian safey at this intersection.  We learned yesterday about 140 children walk the intersection on a typical school day.  In 2006, a pedestrian and bicyclist were involved in crashes.  I met a woman at the Clubhouse Estates Homeowners Association meeting this week whose child was riding a bicycle and hit by a car at the intersection, which she said went unreported.  In 2009, according to information obtained by your staff, the intersection experienced more than forty crashes, including four with injuries and four blocking lanes.

The road widening plans do not preclude what we would propose as a long-term solution for Dr. Phillips' heart: a pedestrian-friendly roundabout. As we discussed, roundabouts slow traffic speeds to 15-20 mph, and virtually eliminate T-bone and head-on crashes.  As a result, roundabouts reduce injuries 76% and fatalities 90% compared to signalized intersections, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.  In recent years, the United States Department of Transportation has become a proponent of roundabouts in part because, "Slower speeds are generally safer for pedestrians."

With a roundabout, motorists and pedestrians can make eye contact.  When this occurs in Windermere, motorists ease to a stop and motion pedestrians to cross the street.  A motorist traveling at 20 mph will more likely yield to a pedestrian than when driving at 45 mph.  The Windermere roundabouts ended traffic back-ups of up to a mile. 

 Town of Windermere Roundabout--15-20 mph traffic with short crossings are conducive to pedestrian safety

View across Dr. Phillips Boulevard
115 feet of pavement with 45 mph traffic.

Notwithstanding the four-way, all-red stop condition at Wallace and Dr. Phillips Blvd., the 115 foot wide intersection with 45 mph traffic is intimidating from a pedestrian's standpoint.  The conceptual plan we presented would reduce the pavement distance to two 26 foot crossings to a center split island.  Pedestrians could cross more quickly, reducing motorist frustration.  A roundabout would become an amenity for the Dr. Phillips community--a seam that brings the various subdivisions together as a neighborhood, rather than a fragmenting intersection.

Recommendations

I would encourage you to schedule a community meeting about the Dr. Phillips transportation network to allow a broad-range of residents to have meaningful input into a long-term vision.  If a consensus of the community would like consideration of a roundabout, I would then encourage you to ask the County to conduct the roundabout feasibility study we suggested yesterday. (The County should secure funding for the study from the $100,000 savings between the low bid and budgeted intersection widening.)  If a roundabout appears feasible, we should attempt to secure a Federal Safe Routes to School grant and look for other funding sources. Based on Billy Hattaway and Jurgen Duncan's experience, the study, engineering, and construction of a roundabout should cost between $300,000 - $500,000, depending on the level of amenities and cost of right-of-way acquisition.  Jurgen's conceptual plan required only a small triangle of land for right-of-way acquisition, which the County could swap with the school district for unneeded right-of-way.

Mark Massaro estimated that a roundabout would take several years from concept to completion.  In the meantime, the current road widening will provide some relief to motorists.  I hope that, in the long-term, we can provide a safer environment for the children crossing the 115 foot intersection.

I look forward to working with you and public works to identify other intersections in District 1 that may serve as viable candidates for a roundabout.  I was pleased to learn that staff views the Windermere roundabouts favorably and will consider the possibility of roundabouts going forward.

Respectfully,


Rick Geller

(UPDATE: 3/22/10--I received heartbreaking news.  The son of friends of ours, an 11 year old, well-liked student at Southwest Middle School, is in intensive care at Arnold Palmer Hospital.  Last Friday after school, a car struck him while he was trying to cross Wallace Road in front of the Sand Lake Hills neighborhood to go to the YMCA.  Please include Daniel and his family in your thoughts and prayers.)

JCC Grand Opening Draws Hundreds

District 1 Commissioner Scott Boyd addressing the crowd at the JCC Grand Opening ceremony. He paid special tribute to Harris Rosen for his philanthropic efforts on behalf of the entire community.


Rick with Melissa and Caroline at the Grand Opening ceremony.

New JCC Opens in Dr. Phillips

Friends--The Jack and Lee Rosen Campus JCC had a "soft-opening" in early August. The architecture, designed by Helman Hurley's Mike Chatham, is iconic. At 34,000 square feet, it's larger than I ever advocated, and the inside is nicer than I ever imagined. Harris Rosen and his construction superintendent, Daniel Guttierez, made sure it got done right.

The gym floor "floats," cushioning shock on the knees. Above you'll find a photo of probably the first-ever documented basketball game at the new JCC, within hours of the doors opening. Having grown-up shooting baskets at the old JCC in Cincinnati, it was wonderful to see the kids running out there and grabbing basketballs.

The JCC's crown jewel--and the reason I became fundraising co-chair with Val Denner in 2003--is the award-winning preschool. No longer housed in trailers, our smallest children now have a school facility worthy of the community. Special thanks to the Dr. Phillips Foundation for the infant and toddler rooms.

The Darden Food Pantry will help families of all faiths who find themselves in short-term, urgent need, as a result of illness, divorce, job loss, or other unexpected event. Special thanks to Patty DeYoung and the board of directors of the Darden Foundation.

The JCC is open to the entire community.

Rick

County Commission Votes 7-0 to Move Magic Gym

ORLANDO, April 29--The Orange County Commissioners voted 7-0 on a motion by District 1 Commissioner Scott Boyd to begin negotiations with the City of Winter Garden to relocate the Orlando Magic Gym.

The City of Winter Garden committed to paying $900,000 for site preparation. This will save Orange County taxpayers at least $1 million, including $100,000 needed to remediate lead at the Dr. Phillips site, formerly a gun club. Dr. Phillips leader Robert Kelly spoke of the community's desire not to host the Magic Gym in a single family residential neighborhood.

Orange County Parks official Matt Sudemeyer recommended the Winter Garden location. The Winter Garden location is near the 429 beltway, making it accessible to a larger portion of West Orange County. Officials expect the Winter Garden location to serve more children, in nearby lower income neighborhoods, who otherwise do not have regular access to YMCA-type facilities.

The County and City will negotiate a joint use agreement.

Rick Geller's comments: This is a win-win for Dr. Phillips, Winter Garden, and Commissioner Boyd, who is making it happen.

Dr. Phillips Community Doesn't Want Magic Gym

A Magic Gym is Planned for Our Park - Who’s Idea Was That ?
By Robert Kelly

Somehow the County did not understand when your HOA board and the Southern Dr. Phillips Homeowners Coalition told Teresa Jacobs (our County Commissioner from 2000-2008) that we did not want the gift of a free Magic Gymnasium in our Dr. P. Phillips Community Park.

Commissioner Jacobs acknowledged our decision and said she had a needy West Orange County location instead. Other plans had been discussed by us from the beginning for Phase 2 of the park, such as boardwalks, trails, health circuits in keeping with its natural habitat and buffer with the surrounding neighborhoods. Since she vacated her seat, Scott Boyd, the new Commissioner, was reminded when he asked us the same question. But the Parks & Recreation Department has already been spent money to survey our park and intends to build this gym.

The Magic Gym will be over 24,000 square feet, with 100+ parking slots and two bus spots. This is similar in size to the Dr. Phillips YMCA. The building will contain a full court basketball and volleyball gym, a weight room, two activity rooms, a game room and locker rooms. The facility will be open later than the current park closing hours, and will host many functions such as competitive and recreation basketball leagues, volleyball, teen dances, health classes, teen center, after school camps, and summer camps and other activities for all west Orange County residents. When we asked why here, when we have the Dr. Phillips YMCA and the new JCC opening a mile south, we were told the Parks Department needed to pick a site that they owned. So, why this one? We are not in need of such a facility. Other parts of Orange County are more deserving.

Parks Department offered another strange justification in their interpretation of a flawed survey that convinced the Parks Department that we wanted that Magic gym. Do you remember the Dr. P. Phillips Community Park Phase 2 survey in late 2007? It never asked if we wanted that Magic Gym. Instead it asked about boardwalk, trails, restrooms, picnic pavilions, fitness course, multi-purpose center, recreation programs, meeting rooms, lockers. The 12 options offered in the survey never included a volleyball or basketball gym. The write-in answers are more telling. Out of 1,128 surveys, only 8 asked for basketball (2 said NO basketball) and 6 mentioned volleyball! With no gym mentioned on the survey or the write-in responses, how could they assume we wanted it? And they never told us we were getting what they thought we wanted. So the story and the survey is flawed.

Out of 1,128 surveys, only 8 asked for basketball

The Magic Gym is an unwelcome hazard to us in the form of continuous day long traffic load, surge traffic at late hours for the sports and teen functions, and the additional cars and pedestrians roaming around our streets and hanging around the path to Sand Lake Point and Sand Lake Cove. The users will be from all over Orange County, Osceola County and tourists. We believe this gym will not be an asset to our community but rather it will be a nuisance and risk.

But we have learned that Winter Garden has the land, public need, and the desire to host this center on a suitable site in a commercial area. We are attempting to steer the gym in that direction.

This HOA has spent hundreds of hours keeping tourist activities and commercial land use away from our homes. We DO NOT want to accept a night time sports and teen facility inside our quiet neighborhood. It is incompatible because the Dr. P. Phillips Park is a "Community Park" designed for the local Dr. Phillips residents, and NOT a Super Regional Park that a Magic Gym would make it. Our Neighborhood already hosts the school, park and soon another 500 new homes along the one two lane 25 mph boulevard.

Say NO THANK YOU to a Magic Gym. Keep the Dr. P. Phillips Community Park a community park as originally promised and DO NOT turn it into a Magic Gym park.

Robert Kelly

President, Buena Vista Woods Homeowners Association


Rick Geller's Comments:

The Orlando Magic is a great organization and will, no doubt, build a first-rate facility. I would like to see the Gym located where the community welcomes it, and where it can serve children who might not otherwise have regular access to a YMCA or a JCC. The Dr. Phillips Community Park site is contaminated with lead, which will reportedly require $100,000 in remediation expense by Orange County taxpayers.
A 24,000 square foot commercial building does not fit the context of a residential neighborhood with 2,500 square foot homes. Therefore, I question the site location, in direct view of homes in Sand Lake Cove and Diamond Cove, without any natural tree buffer.

The City of Winter Garden has long sought this facility. The Orange County Parks Division should suspend the request for construction bids, due in late March, and reconsider whether the Dr. Phillips Community Park location is, in fact, the most appropriate.

New JCC Campus Groundbreaking Set for Nov. 2

DR. PHILLIPS--The groundbreaking ceremony for a new JCC campus, located on South Apopka-Vineland Road, has been set for Sunday, November 2, at 12:30 p.m.

The Campus is named in honor of Jack and Lee Rosen, parents of hotelier Harris Rosen.

Community advocate Rick Geller served with Valerie Denner as fundraising co-chairs for the new Campus and, together, raised about $2.3 million on top of funds previously committed. The Campus will feature permanent classrooms for the acclaimed JCC preschool, a gymnasium, and a food pantry for people in short-term urgent need.

"I never gave up hope we'd eventually see a JCC in the Southwest," said Geller. "The demographics for this Campus are too compelling and, when something's crucial to the community, I can get very persistent."

"Our hats off to Harris Rosen for making the new Campus financially possible," Geller addded.

The JCC is a non-profit organization, affiliated with the United Way, open to the entire community without regard to religion, race, or any discriminatory factor.