Blog Category

Key West’s Bike Score Slipped — and It’s Telling Us Something About Safety for Everybody

Streets for People  |  Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown  |  Chris Hamilton  |  June 20, 2026 PeopleforBikes just released its ninth annual City Ratings report, and Key West’s score of 63 ranks #3 in Florida — and #232 out of 3,019 places rated across the country, the top 8 percent. Not bad for our little island paradise. […]

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Key West’s Mount Rushmore Deserves a Real Plaza, Not a Street With an Appendage

Streets for People  |  Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown  |  Chris Hamilton  |  May 30, 2026 Picture it. The Duval Street Pocket Park, last Saturday at 1 PM. A line of happy tourists waits to take a photo with the Southernmost Point buoy. Kids running around. A musician playing nearby. A cyclist threading through without anyone batting […]

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The Lofts at Trumbo: A Win for Workers and Our Downtown — Here’s How to Make It Even Better

Streets for People  |  Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown  |  Chris Hamilton  |  May 23, 2026 The City Commission approved The Lofts at Trumbo on May 7. One hundred and fifty deed-restricted affordable apartments for teachers and school district staff, on five and a half acres of prime downtown land where dilapidated school district warehouses have been […]

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Housing Plus Transportation: The Affordability Math Nobody’s Doing

Why the second-biggest bill in your household budget is the affordability lever our local governments can actually pull Streets for People  |  Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown  |  Chris Hamilton  |  May 2, 2026 Everyone’s talking about affordability. Your groceries. Your car insurance. The gas pump on Truman Avenue at $4.79 a gallon. The rent that just […]

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The Lower Keys Shuttle: From Workhorse to Racehorse

One road. Fifty miles. The case for transforming the Keys’ most important bus into a transit spine worthy of the place. Streets for People  |  Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown  |  Chris Hamilton  |  April 18, 2026 Two weeks ago, on an evening walk along Truman Avenue, I stopped to take a couple of photos. Circle K: […]

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Keeping Key West Key West — and It Starts at the Airport 

Why record airport growth is good news for everything that makes this island irreplaceable. Streets for People  |  Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown  |  Chris Hamilton  |  March 28, 2026 Key West International Airport recently announced “Another Month, Another Milestone” with their busiest February on record — a 9.4% increase in passengers for the month year over […]

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Could the Duval Loop and Fixed Routes Be Returning to Key West Streets?

And Could the Lower Keys Shuttle and Workforce Express Finally Get Better Service? Streets for People  |  Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown  |  Chris Hamilton  |  March 14, 2026 The City of Key West quietly updated its 10-year transit development plan this month—a state-required annual exercise that usually generates little attention. But this year’s update, following as […]

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Key West Adopts Roadmap to Zero Traffic Deaths — With 36 Projects and a Price Tag

New Safety Plan Targets High Injury Network, Illegal E-Motos, and the 14.5% of Roads Where 67% of Serious Crashes Happen Streets for People  |  Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown  |  Chris Hamilton  |  March 7, 2026 The numbers tell a stark story: Key West’s fatal and serious injury crash rate is four times the state average. Between […]

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City Pumps Brakes on Downtown Garage – Now It’s Time for Real Transportation Solutions

Streets for People  |  Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown  |  Chris Hamilton  |  February 15, 2026 Key West officials have quietly paused plans for the controversial $6 million parking garage at Simonton and Angela Streets. According to the Key West Weekly (Feb 12 edition), City Manager Brian Barroso scrapped the proposal by February 6th in response to […]

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Interview with U.S.1 Evening Edition’s Nick Wright and Chris Hamilton on Why The City Has Failed To Make the Case for a Downtown Garage

February 5, 2026. Is there a need for a new parking garage in downtown? Not really. There’s a lot of parking in Old Town Key West. It just may not be free and may not be exactly in front of where you want to go. So, like Doris Day Parking, there’s a perception that there’s […]

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