St. Augustine is known for its beautiful beaches, colorful history, and, most recently, gridlocked traffic.
But city representatives are making moves to change that, with the help of citizens’ guidance.
The city’s mobility initiative kicked off this week with a three-day event to get the community involved. Littlejohn Engineering, the firm contracted by the city to develop a transportation master plan, hosted an open house to field questions and address concerns of area residents.
Inside the historic Alcazar Hotel, engineering staff hosted stations designed to target different problem areas around town. Residents and engineers discussed which areas were prone to “cueing,” or long lines of cars, and made suggestions on sticky notes placed on enlarged maps.
The notes, however, illustrated just how difficult it will be to appease everyone in town. Two notes near the Bridge of Lions read, “No parking garage downtown – it will only attract more cars!” and “More parking garage downtown. The cars are already here.”
Littlejohn’s director of landscape architecture, Jay Hood, worked to field the competing interests of stakeholders at the open house.
“The biggest thing that we’ve heard,” Hood said, “is how do you balance the system. How do you make it so that the residents, as well as the tourists, as well as the businesses, all can be successful with this plan?”
Ben Bailey manages a small business downtown, and was one of the many locals who turned out to offer suggestions Thursday.
“I was hoping to hear more, or something about how St. Augustine was going to be tied into Jacksonville, [and the] Jacksonville airport, as well as Orlando and the Orlando airport, so as to alleviate some of the automobile pressure on downtown,” he said.
Bailey is also a cyclist, and like others, requested safer bike lanes to allow for alternate means of transportation.
Although it will be challenging to factor in all of the suggestions, Mayor Nancy Shaver said city representatives are taking transportation issues seriously.
“This is an initiative that the city commission set as its top priorities for the foreseeable future, addressing our mobility/congestion traffic issues. That’s No 1. No. 2, and probably equal, is our infrastructure. This is a really critical initiative for our city,” Shaver said.
Shaver also encouraged residents to provide input, even if they were unable to attend the open house. Suggestions can be emailed to Shaver at nshaver@citystaug.com or Xavier Pellicer, the city’s mobility coordinator, at xpellicer@citystaug.com.