Good-Bye One-Ways

Nearly two years after work began on College and Post Streets, the pair of one-way Riverside state-owned roadways should switch to two-way, City-owned roads this week. (December 2nd)

The two-way conversion will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday and last most of the day, according to Florida Department of Transportation spokesman Mike Goldman. Workers will be uncovering traffic lights and signs and removing safety cones, starting with College Street first.

City officials will be on hand to observe traffic and explain the change to the public for the first few days of the switchover, according to City Council President Michael Corrigan, who represents the Riverside neighborhood. He said the Sheriff’s Office and Public Works will have an increased presence.

Work on the streets, which originally began in January 2005, was scheduled to finish in early September. The switchover was delayed because of uneven paving and poor durability, according to Goldman – and Post and College residents have been parking on their lawns and navigating the roadwork in the meantime.

“It’s been difficult on the residents who had to live with orange cones in front of their houses for longer than anyone expected,” said Goldman. “(But) the work was deficient ... We’re not going to turn anything over to the City that they’re going to have to come back and fix several years from now.”

The $3.4 million state project aims to reduce high-speed traffic in the neighborhood and make the area safer, according to Goldman. The streets have been state-owned extensions of U.S. 17 for more than 50 years. FDOT agreed to make improvements to the streets before turning them over to the City, which will be responsible for the roads as soon as the two-way conversion is complete. Goldman said the state has charged the project’s contractor $2,400 a day in damages since he missed the September deadline.
Many residents of the Riverside area have argued over the need for and details of the two-way switch in the last year. Some have discussed the project on the MetroJax online message boards, amassing eight pages of comments and questions. One of their main concerns now is parking: The width of College and Post streets varies and, like several other residential Riverside streets, some areas don’t have enough space for two lanes of travel and parking on both sides.

“There’s no definite parking plan at this point,” said Corrigan. “Public Works will wait and see what the public does with the two-ways and make adjustments.”

Those adjustments could include no-parking signs in some areas if Public Works decides safety is an issue. Corrigan said he plans to organize a ceremony to celebrate the change.

“There won’t be a the-second-the-cones-come-down celebration,” he said. Corrigan plans to wait until a week or two after the two-way switch because of the previous delays.

by Liz Daube