Anna Maria is saying no to going one way.
Commissioners voted Sept. 22 to eliminate the possibility of changing traffic on Pine Avenue to one-way and removed another alternative from a slate of five offered by a traffic engineer as part of a project to Reimagine Pine Avenue.
Anna Maria residents at a public hearing and meeting breathed audible sighs of relief and applauded as commissioners unanimously voted to take off the table any option for one-way vehicular traffic on Pine Avenue.
Since May, when traffic engineer Gerry Traverso of St. Petersburg-based George F. Young Inc. suggested one-way streets was an option for his traffic study as part of the Reimagine Pine Avenue project, residents on Spring and Magnolia avenues — the streets targeted for opposing one-way traffic — have been concerned about the possible impact.
The project to explore safety and traffic flow on the city’s main business road includes Spring and Magnolia avenues —parallel roads south of Pine Avenue — and Gulf Drive to the west and South Bay Boulevard to the east.
As anticipated, one of Traverso’s alternatives indeed called for Pine and Magnolia avenues to be opposite-direction one-way roads, what he called a “one-way pair.”
The purpose for one-way pairs is to distribute traffic and reduce stress on motorists and roads in an area more evenly.
Commissioner Jonathan Crane said he thinks Pine Avenue would be better as a one-way road, but not if it requires Spring or Magnolia avenues also to be one way.
“Without empirical data we don’t know,” Mayor Dan Murphy said. “Before we can intelligently discuss the impact of it, I think we need to know: What’s it going to do to Spring and Magnolia?”
At the beginning of the Sept. 22 meeting, Traverso presented data showing the number of vehicles his study recorded in several 24-hour periods on the roads included in the project’s scope — including about 5,000 on Pine Avenue.
“If we do the one-way pair … you’re adding almost 5,000 cars, however they divide up, to Spring and Magnolia. I find that totally unacceptable for those neighborhoods,” Commissioner Doug Copeland said. “The whole city’s been impacted by the tourist boom. I feel that we can’t impact those two blocks to that extent.”
After the commission ruled out one-way traffic, Crane made a motion to have Traverso reevaluate the data and present an option that made Pine Avenue a singular one-way street. But without a second, the motion failed.
The next alternative nixed by commissioners involved the addition of parallel on-street parking and delivery areas, along with the creation of a paved continuous concrete sidewalk in place of the existing, meandering, crushed shell and sand walkways.
The alternative would not have provided dedicated bicycle lanes but would have employed sharrows — markings on the road identifying it as shared equally by motor vehicle and bicycle traffic.
Commissioners unanimously agreed the shared travel lanes created enough danger and paired with on-street parallel parking could lead to more hazardous situations as people opened doors of parked vehicles.
As commissioners nixed the alternative, they did so with the caveat that parking options would be discussed in the future.
“You won’t have ideal parking if you’re looking at safety,” Anna Maria resident Bob Carter, a planning board member and husband of Commissioner Carol Carter, said during the meeting.
“You won’t have shared lane use for bikes and cars if you’re looking at safety. So I agree with what you just did but, overall, I hope that safety remains the top priority because it’s a dangerous road the way it is now,” he said.
“I just wanted to commend you all for making great progress today. You achieved the mayor’s objective of getting it down to two and you know change is not a simple task,” David Hutchinson, executive director of the Sarasota/Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization said.
Hutchinson asked Traverso if the remaining alternatives would help resolve drainage issues, which is an objective of the project.
Traverso said regardless of the alternative commissioners choose, addressing drainage issues is part of the project.
At an Aug. 19 meeting, commissioners unanimously voted down an alternative that only called for additional pavement markings and the addition of two crosswalks to the five existing on Pine Avenue along with four more on both Spring and Magnolia avenues.
A date was not set for a follow-up meeting, when commissioners will discuss the remaining two alternatives offered by Traverso in addition to two new previously not discussed suggestions from Copeland and Commissioner Deanie Sebring.
The first of the remaining two alternatives would add buffered bike lanes in both directions of travel on Pine Avenue, provide a continuous sidewalk for pedestrians and alleviate sightline issues by shifting parking from the roadway closer to storefronts.
The other alternative would create sidewalks on both sides of Pine Avenue, add 8-foot-wide two-way bike lanes on one side of the road and increase the number of pedestrian crosswalks.
Anna Maria City Hall is at 10005 Gulf Drive.
For more information, call the clerk’s office at 941-708-6130.