Residential neighborhoods present a number of challenges. In some cases, the folks that laid out New Port Richey’s street grid had different ideas from what actually came to be. The best example of that is Central Avenue, which was originally envisioned as being the business district. Obviously, it didn’t work out that way.
As a result of the way it was designed vs. the way it has come to be used, the street is far too wide. The easiest fix would be a median and on-street parking. You can see how this works between Adams and Circle. There is something to be said for asking the folks that live on Central between Adams and Madison if they would like to see a similar treatment in front of their homes. I’m pretty confident that it would slow down traffic.
The problem is not unique to Central. There are a number of streets, including Montana, Missouri, and Delaware that could benefit from going on a diet. Grand Blvd between Gulf Drive and Main Street is a special case that I’ll address in an upcoming NPR Note.
So much asphalt for so few cars. Check out the “Please slow down” signs residents have posted.
The picture on the right is of Delaware Avenue. You could easily park on one or both sides and STILL have plenty of room for traffic. This is crazy.
In my own neighborhood, North River Road is far wider than any rational road designer would make it today. In a general, it is 24′ wide or wider. Keeping in mind that a “normal” residential street traffic lane should be 10′ wide, or 20′ for the whole street, and you can see the problem. We have literally built our residential streets with traffic lanes the same width as those on Interstate highways. It is no wonder that we have a speeding problem in town. The Seattle Greenways folks wrote a good explanation of all this.
Another issue is that we’ve compounded the temptation to speed on these Interstate sized lanes by adding “racing stripes” right down the middle of the road! Somebody in Public Works decades ago must have gotten quite the deal on yellow line paint. We’ve removed those center lines on some roads and the effect has been to slow down traffic.
Overwide streets have a very real cost for neighborhoods. Other things, like wide sidewalks, don’t happen because there isn’t enough room. Narrow the streets to a normal residential width of 20′ and suddenly there is all sorts of room available for things like 4′ wide sidewalks.
Streets can be made to work. South River Road between Main and South Street isn’t that much narrower than North River Road, but it has curbs on one side that definitely slow you down if you have to pass someone coming from the other direction. (It also has speed humps, which are a bit of overkill. You don’t need speed humps or other fixes if the roads are built properly in the first place.)
We are already working on residential streets as part of our pavement management program. Perhaps we can right-size these streets and add sidewalks as we go. There is no reason that New Port Richey can’t be more pedestrian friendly.
For as long as I can remember, the city has put a lot of emphasis on the downtown. That is all well and good, but the neighborhoods need love too. Prior to the Great Recession, the city was working to fix up various neighborhoods. We got as far as having a visioning session with the residents of my neighborhood before the economy tanked. Over the last year or so, we’ve started working on neighborhoods again.
The renovations in the Jasmin Park are a good example of this. Improvements for other neighborhood parks are in the works as well.
The City Council is considering options for offering grants or low interest loans to help homeowners fix up their properties. We’ve had some of these in the past and I believe we should expand the programs. There are grants that the City can use to pay for these programs. The City is now receiving Community Development Block Grant dollars that can be used for rehabilitating residential properties. More information on CDBG funding can be found here.
General neighborhood improvements are slated for $350,000 in funding over the next five years. Neighborhood Street and Sidewalk Improvements are budgeted for over two million dollars over the next five years. Other line items in the five year plan will also benefit the residential neighborhoods.
We are having a work session on September 7th at 5pm to talk about the alleys. Some of them need some serious attention. We’ll attempt to balance the need for the alleys to be fully paved for garbage trucks and the like against the drainage issues that might result from paving them. Interestingly enough, a functional alley grid further reduces the need for oversized streets in front of houses.
The key take away is that we’ve got a handle on business side of things and it is now time to spend more time and money investing in our housing stock and residential neighborhoods.
Stay tuned.
Rob Marlowe, Mayor
I’m glad to see the City giving renewed attention to improving the neighborhoods. Both the downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods need to thrive so that each benefits the other. The larger the share of downtown’s customers are within walking/rolling/biking/golf cart distance, for example, the more stable its businesses will be, and the more customers there will be who don’t require a downtown parking spot. In turn a vibrant downtown makes living in those neighborhoods more economical, pleasant, and appealing to newcomers. That will spur more investment and care of both residential and commercial properties.
Indeed. “Reimagining How We Get Around” is one of the subjects I’ll be addressing in the not too distant future.
I live on Central, east of Madison. I’d prefer to see Central west of Madison have a tree-lined median than given over to parking spaces. Don’t we have enough tax-payer-funded, free, on-street parking already near the center? Why build more? I like the shuttle idea from the parking lot on 19. Works well with the road diet idea.
What I’d also like to see:
1. Stormwater and flood management central to the plans. Like: https://www.epa.gov/greeningepa/stormwater-management-practices-epa-facilities
There was an earlier conceptual plan published that showed what NPR could look like with flood mitigation – what parts of that have been considered? Aquafer recharge?
2. Zoning and development approvals directly linked to infrastructure needs and costs.
– do we know the breaking points for our stormwater, drinking water, and sewage systems? Like why do we wheel in a mobile pump when the stormwater basin on Pennsylvania & Monroe fills, instead of having dedicated infrastructure?
– can we account for the cost, or mitigate the added stress, when re-zoning or approving a development? Any water retention added to handle the increased run-off from the Central at Orange Lake?
3. Any way of maintaining the stormwater basins for recreation and nature? Like the retention basin on Pennsylvania was home to ducks, turtles, hawks, geese and other wildlife. The trucks and diggers came, removed all the vegetation. We now have a muddy waterhole, filled only with cane toads. (I did find a lost soft-shelled turtle on Central – I returned it to the mud-hole). And for example, the large basins by the hospital and rec center might accommodate dog runs.
4. Pedestrian-only zones. Start small – and at weekends. Then extend if it proves a success.
5. Improved street lighting and sidewalks. Outside of Main and Madison, the streets are woefully light and paved.
6. More stop signs. Particularly around schools. You want to slow traffic – it’s one of the best ways in addition to narrowing streets.
and 2 more things for my wish-list:
7. Complete wifi hotspot coverage across the city, ideally free, or at least through Spectrum and Frontier.
8. EV plan. More charging stations? Solar canopies on parking spaces?
We’ve been talking about expanding WiFi in the city. Spectrum and Frontier have the deep pockets needed to blanket the whole city, including residential areas, but we may well find a way to cover the parks.
We’ve have a total of four public dual port Chargepoint stations around town prior to last week. There are a pair of single port Duke Energy stations in the parking lot at the south end of Bank Street. That parking lot has been re-worked to add parking and it should reopen in the next couple of weeks. The new parking garage has a dual port Chargepoint station on each of the four levels. By my count, that gives us a total of 18 plugs for EV charging in public lots.
Solar panel costs have dropped quite a bit over the last few years. We’re exploring options for solar canopies over parking spaces. The library renovations include solar panels on the roof.
We have four EVs in the city fleet. It is my understanding that a fifth one is due to arrive shortly.
The police department will start replacing gas guzzlers with hybrid patrol cars this year.
As a wider selection of EVs become available over the next couple of years, I expect we’ll add EVs throughout the fleet. The fuel and maintenance savings make EVs a compelling choice.
Thanks for your comments. A lot of your suggestions are already being incorporated into city planning, especially things like the stormwater
Eliminating on street parking on streets like Central from Adams to Madison require functioning alleys. We’ve got a work session tomorrow at 5pm to talk about alleys.
Making Railroad Square pedestrian only on the weekends has been going on for quite a while. It still needs work to make it inviting during the days.
You’ll see all the streets addresses over the next few years.
Thanks again for your comments.
Thanks for your considered responses.
My biggest concern about paving the alleys – is drainage. The sloped alley behind my home acts as a runoff retention pond during heavy rains. Before I fixed a retaining wall on the alley, I had a 1 ft river of water running past my home during heavy rain. Any paving of alleys needs to incorporate handling of the run-off. Take a drive in heavy rain around the slopes between Main-Indiana, Monroe-Harrison and you’ll see the rivers running down the slopes. Putting down impervious paving in the alleys may flood people’s homes, and stress existing retention ponds. Need to put some effort into assessing the proposal.
Mr. Mayor I love the direction the city is going and I appreciate all your thoughts and hard work, but I think worrying about the width of streets it’s not our top priority right now. As the top elected official of the city if you know streets that we have people speeding on we should put enforcement in there too stop it. I live on River Road south of Main Street and trust me the narrow streets are not slowing people down . I don’t think the width of our streets is the problem. I think the people walking the streets is a bigger problem, we really need to fix up the reputation of New Port Richey. I think what we should be working on is showing outsiders that New Port Richey is a safe friendly area to visit and spend their money.
Thanks for your comments. If you think the traffic on South River is fast, you ought to see it on some of the other streets! We clocked someone going over 90 on Marine Parkway.
I’m working my way through a whole group of topics. I’ll make a point of addressing the folks you see walking the streets.