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Wait a minute, government doesn't act
like this! Safety Harbor City Commissioners heard a presentation
last month that included a startling recommendation. With a budget
of $400,000 available for traffic calming and beautification, city
officials suggested only a bit more than half that amount would be
necessary to accomplish much of the city's immediate goals. City
Engineer Bill Baker and City Manager Billy Beckett are to be
congratulated on bringing an attitude to city hall that seems a
departure from what has been the norm. Too often, even as recently
as the onset of the study these recommendations address, the city
has found the expensive way to address problems. When residents
complained about traffic cutting through downtown neighborhoods, a
consultant was hired for $75,000 to study the issue. Not
surprisingly, the final recommendations were what the residents had
been asking for anyway — more stop signs and a few speed
humps. But first, perhaps to justify the fee, the consultants
engaged in a series of "what if" scenarios. Baker and Beckett have
now delivered a very different set of "what if" plans, that might
be summarized as: "What if we use some paint and plastic rather
than tearing everything up?" Common sense at last.
The proposal, which commissioners welcomed
and applauded, is that the city immediately re-stripe Main Street,
adding solid white stripes between the roadway and parking to
visually separate the two. A bit of paint — actually
thermoplastic — will now clearly mark the crosswalks where
pedestrians are paramount and subtly help drivers remain in the
traffic lanes on a busy street where car doors frequently pop open
in front of oncoming vehicles. Of course it doesn't widen a
relatively narrow street, but it does focus drivers' attention and
in doing so accomplishes another goal, encouraging slower speeds
through downtown.
A second part of the proposal also offers
a relatively simple fix to a nagging problem. For more than a
decade, at least since the city took ownership of the former S.R.
590 through downtown, the Philippe Parkway bridge over Mullet Creek
has been an eyesore. Once classically designed with concrete
balustrades, over the decades the balustrades were cheaply and
unartfully repaired and then hidden by steel guardrails. City
Engineer Baker dubbed it the ugliest public structure in the city
and he is absolutely correct. Furthermore, the steel guardrails are
an obstacle to the city completing the one missing block of
sidewalk along the parkway. It is an embarassment that an entryway
to the city is a weedy, sometimes muddy strip of publicly owned
property overgrown with brush and vines that hide a potential asset
— Mullet Creek.
Baker proposes a series of concrete and
PVC balusters to replace the guardrails, providing a more pleasant
appearance and — most importantly — reopening space to
allow a proper sidewalk to be constructed on the east side of the
bridge. Even more attractive alternatives may be adopted when the
bridge is rebuilt. Meanwhile, the bridge doesn't structurally need
to be replaced, but it could benefit greatly from a bit of paint
and plastic.
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Front Page 
Op-Ed 
