Streets for People / City Snags $400K Federal Safe Streets Planning Grant That May Lead To Additional Construction Dollars

Posted on February 3, 2023     Leave a Comment

By Chris Hamilton. This story is cross posted in KONK Life newspaper on February 3, 2023. Follow us at Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown on Facebook and check out all our Streets for People stories here.

On February 1 the U.S. Department of Transportation announced $800 million in grant awards for 510 projects throughout the country from a new Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) Grant Program to help localities tackle traffic fatalities. Thanks to some smart work by City staff, the City of Key West is one of the 510 projects, receiving $400,000 for planning with the possibility of even more for constructing infrastructure in the future. This is important because our little island is full of cars and bikes and all manner of e-vehicles and scooters sharing our compact streets. Funding can help jumpstart needed infrastructure changes called for in our Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan and Vision Zero policy to make our streets safer.

Great to See Key West Get Funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

In announcing the competitive grant program, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said:

“Every year, crashes cost tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars to our economy; we face a national emergency on our roadways, and it demands urgent action,” said U.S. Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “We are proud that these grants will directly support hundreds of communities as they prepare steps that are proven to make roadways safer and save lives.”    

The Safe Streets & Roads for All Grants established by the Biden Administration’s “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law” provides $5 billion over five years. Approximately $1B is set aside for this first round that provides funding to develop Comprehensive Safety Action Plans to meet Vision Zero goals. The second round of about $4B is set aside to implement those plans with infrastructure.

Key West’s Vision Zero Sets the Stage

In 2020, Key West called for a Vision Zero goal to eliminate roadway fatalities and serious injuries by 2035. Says Multi-Modal Transportation Coordinator Ryan Stachurski, who wrote the $400,000 “Key West City-Wide Comprehensive Safety Action Plan” grant:

“We hope that with public engagement and collaboration, we can produce policy and process recommendations to develop a well-defined strategy to prevent roadway fatalities. But once we create our plan, we have to do something with it. An important aspect of this grant opportunity is that the program managers don’t want to just create plans. Once we identify opportunities, there is an option for implementation funding.

This opportunity is important to me because pedestrians and bicyclists – as vulnerable road users – are disproportionally affected by roadway collisions. But our entire community suffers when tragedy strikes on our shared streets. Developing a plan is a step toward achieving our Vision Zero goal.”

Mr. Stachurski graciously added: “Writing this grant was a team effort with Christine Lane of Langton Consulting, Carolyn Sheldon, Alison Higgins, and the support of City Management: all working to make our city safer.”

Key West Community Support Needed

As staff moves forward on developing a “Key West City-Wide Comprehensive Safety Action Plan” they’ll lean on the Key West Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan and Vision Zero policy but will really need the community to step up and identify priorities for what to do with any potential second round funding.

This couldn’t come at a more opportune moment. Last year three bike riders were killed in crashes on Key West and Stock Island. And we’ve talked about how Key West is full of cars AND bikes and e-vehicles and how that often unsafe mix is different from most places. So having some planning money to identify the most needed projects and the opportunity to get more funds to actually build some infrastructure is a huge get for our little island.

Congratulations to the forward-thinking staff who enabled this. As a community we need to support them and the process. In the end, everyone stands to benefit from safer streets. People in cars, on bikes and on two feet.

Streets for People / City and FDOT Fail, Again, to Follow Key West Bike Plan. This Time On Whitehead Street

Posted on January 27, 2023     Leave a Comment

By Chris Hamilton. This story is cross posted in KONK Life newspaper on January 27, 2023. Follow us at Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown on Facebook and check out all our Streets for People stories here.

On January 18, FDOT officials presented City Commissioners with an update about three projects about to begin construction in Key West. One of those is a $2.6M project on Whitehead Street between Truman and Fleming (the portion of the street that is part of U.S. Route 1 and thus FDOT’s) to reconstruct and repave the street and to replace damaged sidewalks. The City’s adopted Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan calls for protected bike lanes on this street. Instead, we’ll get essentially what we have now, 33 spaces for private car storage and no bike lanes.

We’ve heard this story before. On S. Roosevelt Boulevard. On First and Bertha Streets. On Palm Avenue. And now on Whitehead Street. The adopted Bike Plan calls for all of these to get bicycle infrastructure. In each case car convenience was chosen over bicycle safety. When asked why we aren’t building bicycle infrastructure in these projects FDOT, County and City officials circle the wagons and roll out a litany of bureaucratic double-speak to explain how they really care about building safer streets, but it just couldn’t happen in this case because well…

• people need parking,
• there’s not enough right-of-way,
• think of the trees,
• it would cost more money,
• the design was made before the Bike Plan was adopted,
• it would impact our schedule, or
• no bike advocates showed up to the meeting and asked.

Having multiple agencies involved in these particular projects helps each escape responsibility. In this case the City says it isn’t their street and FDOT says they consulted with the City, and this is what they wanted. The exact same thing happened on First and Bertha between the County and City.

There were three bike riders killed in crashes on Key West and Stock Island last year. Key West is full of cars AND bikes. That’s different than most places. And our Mayor keeps asking for bike lanes. And yet the prevailing bias for car convenience in all three bureaucracies makes change extremely difficult. And so once again, it looks like we’ll get Sharrows instead of bike lanes and that’s not safer for anybody.

The Bike Plan and City Strategic Plan Point the Way Forward

The Key West Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Transportation Plan, adopted in March of 2019 after two years and spending nearly $300,000 is an exceptional plan produced by the world-class engineering, urban design and planning firm Toole Design. It had a ton of public input, was thoroughly vetted and Commission approved. (For an overview read: Key West, Let’s Radically Speed Up the Implementation of Our Bike/Ped Plan, May 20, 2020.

One of the reasons for the Plan is because the State requires localities to have approved plans in order to seek State funding for projects and so when the State or local government do projects there is some guidance for what to do.

The Key West Forward Strategic Plan, adopted in 2021 emphasizes Traffic and Pedestrian Friendliness as one of the six overarching priorities, specifically to “improve the ease and safety of residents and visitors as they traverse the island.” Goal 1 of this priority reads: “Complete Streets: Ensure safe and more accessible bike and pedestrian routes in accordance with the Bike and Pedestrian Master Plan…Improve and expand bicycle and pedestrian trails and implement the three overarching goals in the Bike/Ped Plan.”

Whitehead Street is addressed as needing “separated bike lanes” in the Vision or Long-Term Plan on pages 34 and 72 as explained on page 46.

Optimal Time to Put In Bike Infrastructure Is During Street Rebuilding/Repaving

The optimal time to put in new bicycle infrastructure is when a street is rebuilt (such as in the case of Whitehead Street) or when it is repaved. So, the opportunity to implement the Vision Plan presented itself when FDOT said they were rebuilding the street because that’s when the curb line, if needed can be moved, that’s when tree wells can be moved and so on. And once a street is repaved it can be painted in any configuration you want.

So, if anyone at City Hall had the guts to actually follow the plan in the face of losing private car storage and moving some trees, this would have been the time to speak up. OR it would have been the time, as the Mayor has asked, time and again, to bring some options to the City Commission. But FDOT and City staff determined that because parking and tree removal are political third rails in this town they were simply going to opt for the existing short-term plan and default to Sharrows.

Sharrows Are Make Believe Safety Infrastructure

Sharrows are short for shared lane markings. They are used to indicate a shared lane environment for bicycles and automobiles. They are supposed to reinforce the legitimacy of bicycle traffic in the street and recommend proper positioning of the bicyclist.

Google “are Sharrows safe” and you’ll get a string of articles, none of which are flattering about this supposed “infrastructure.” Up pops “ineffective.” “Unsafe.” “Worse than Nothing At All.” But my favorite is “Sharrows Are Bullshit.” Yes, that’s the title of an excellent article by Peter Flax. I highly recommend reading the entire thing, but here it is in a nutshell:

“Sharrows are perfect for city officials who care enough about safety to do the very least. There’s only one problem: Sharrows are make believe safety infrastructure.”

The Project We’re Getting for Whitehead Street Looks an Awful Lot Like It Does Today

The plan presented by FDOT for this stretch of Whitehead Street calls for the street to be rebuilt and repaved. Sidewalks will be fixed. Broken curbs mended. Signage will be improved, and pedestrian beg buttons will be upgraded. And best of all, as FDOT touts in nice red writing, 33 of the existing 38 car storage spaces will be kept. In a nod to what they say is a safety improvement, some car parking spaces will be removed near intersections and driveways so as to improve sight lines, making it easier for people in cars to exit onto the street and not have to contend with trying to see around those mega vehicles so prevalent today, without hitting people. The street will no doubt be shiny and new, but it is essentially the same street. And no bike improvements. We get those good for nothing Sharrows.

Are Master Plans Only Good for Gathering Dust? We Asked Advocates, FDOT and the City

We asked some bicycle advocates what they thought about the Whitehead Street plan presented by FDOT and here’s what Evan Haskell, owner of the WeCycle bike shops on Stock Island and Key West told us:

“Just a couple meetings ago, the City Commission gave 6 acres of public land to the airport, with nothing in exchange. That land was identified in our master plan as a critical connector for the hundreds of residents in the Ocean Walk and Las Salinas apartments. Only Commissioner Kaufman protested that appalling giveaway. Now, we learn that staff continue to ignore the Bicycle Master Plan in their daily operations and the upcoming Whitehead Street project will include no improvements for cycling. Unfortunately, we are seeing again that in this City, Master Plans are only good for one thing – gathering dust.”

When we asked FDOT if they’d consulted the plan their Communication Manager Tish Burgher said:

“Regarding the City’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan, the FDOT Design Team reviewed it; however, it was determined that incorporating bike lanes would impact trees located within the utility strip and also require widening the road, acquiring potential easements, removing parking spaces, and adding additional storm water drainage improvements. The associated costs would result in an increase of approximately $3.5 million and would impact the schedule of this project.”

They went on to further explain that when they met with City staff in March of 2020, everyone agreed “to include Sharrows with sign routes for bicyclists, instead of separate lanes due to the scope and limited right-of-way in this project.” FDOT was adamant, they coordinated and got approvals from the City.

We asked the City the same questions as FDOT and didn’t get an official response.

Again, if you are literally going to rebuild the street, curb and gutter and sidewalk, that would have been the time to do something brave. Even at the cost of parking, a few trees and more money. Alas, we get Sharrows.

After our deadline for KONK Life news we did get a response from our friend Alison Higgins, the City’s Sustainability Coordinator saying:

“We’re taking the longview on the separated lanes for Whitehead and Simonton. Because we’ll never have the political will to remove parking without an alternative, we’re working on off street parking options for those areas.  We’ll be doing renderings of  six different roof deck parking options this year to start the ball rolling on that. Once we get alternative parking, we can remove the existing parking, and get the bike lanes we desire.”

Going Forward, Let’s Do Better By People on Bikes

It seems like the last few years haven’t seen progress on bike lanes in our City. But we’ve got a great Bike Plan and a Strategic Plan that emphasizes getting bike projects done. We have a Mayor who gets it and has asked that every repaving project consider bike lanes. We also have a fairly new and progressive team in the Engineering Department in the persons of Interim Engineering Director Gary Volenec and Multi-Modal Transportation Coordinator Ryan Stachurski who weren’t around when these projects were approved by others. And we think our friend Alison’s take above bodes well for the future. So we’re hopeful.

Key West is full of cars AND bikes. That’s different than most places. We are one of the few places in the country where so many bikes, pedestrians and e-bikes/scooters share our compact streets with vehicles. Add the fact that many of the folks out there are visitors from the mainland, unfamiliar with this, makes for an unsafe mix on our streets. So, we can no longer accept that status quo of always taking the easy path of what we’ve been doing before. We need to do things differently. We need our staff and politicians to be brave enough to lose some parking or car lanes and make our streets safer. Our island will be better for it. Let’s lay down a marker here and say from now on we expect better by everyone involved.

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Streets for People / The Lofts Moves Forward With Less Car Parking and More Bike Racks

Posted on January 20, 2023     Leave a Comment

By Chris Hamilton. This story is cross posted in KONK Life newspaper on January 20, 2023. Follow us at Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown on Facebook and check out all our Streets for People stories here.

On January 18, the one-year anniversary of city residents approving a referendum to lease 3.2 acres of City-owned land in Bahama Village to a non-profit group for 126 units of much needed workforce housing, the City Commission approved final plans allowing the project to move forward to construction with a groundbreaking ceremony in May. That’s great news! Best of all, the initially proposed 180+ surface car parking spaces have been nearly cut in half to 99 while bicycle parking went from 20 proposed spaces to 121. City staff, the Planning Board and City Commission acknowledged the site’s central location with good transit, walk, and bike access to downtown and citing similar neighboring properties less than full parking lots, allowed for the car parking reduction. That’s a win for common sense, our historic downtown and the project.

The Big Picture: Putting Workforce Housing Downtown Is a Good Thing

In a story we did last year leading up to the referendum, 3 Reasons You May Not Have Thought of for Voting YES on 3.2 on January, 18, January 7, 2022, we acknowledged the real need for more workforce housing and said more of it should be on the island of Key West. We especially applauded the proposed Lofts at Bahama Village project for three reasons:

1. More locals living downtown creates a more local focused, less touristy vibe and that’s good for the historic business district,
2. Housing downtown makes it easier to bike, walk and use transit to get around, and
3. Not being car dependent brings livability costs down further for residents of the project.

Win. Win. Win.

But Lots of Surface Parking Was Initially Proposed – And That’s Bad

After the referendum passed and the project moved to the planning phase we argued in a story on February 4 that Too Much Surface Parking at The Lofts Is a Wasteful use of Valuable Downtown Land. At the time, Executive Director of A.H. Monroe Scott Pridgen, the leader of the non-profit coalition selected to build The Lofts said: “We currently propose 126 units…with 189 parking spaces.” As we dug in further, we found that City Code required 131 spaces (1 car parking space per unit + some handicapped spaces) and that in addition to these Mr. Pridgen was counting 48 spaces in the crescent parking lot adjacent to The Lofts and included in their site plans, already built at Truman Waterfront Park. The 131 spaces weren’t built yet, and they were going to take up a lot of land because given the height limitation, to maximize the number of units (126) meant the cars couldn’t be parked under the buildings.

Months later, as the project moved toward the Development Review Committee (DRC) in September, we learned that 126 new surface parking spaces (now inclusive of the handicapped spaces) were still being required on the site. The 48 spaces in the crescent still sat there unused and uncounted in the projection. 13 bicycle parking spaces were being required and 20 were proposed. In a letter to the DRC, we asked why there wasn’t more bicycle parking and questioned why there wasn’t any parking reduction, taking into account the project’s access to downtown, good transit, biking and walking options and access to those 48 spaces.

The Navy’s Rules Nudge Developer/City to Build Less Car-Parking and More Bike Parking

As the project moved through DRC to the Planning Board the Navy objected to parking within 50 ft of their property housing the Navy communications tower, referred to as the TACTS Tower. This necessitated the project developer to rethink the parking scheme and propose the following:

Required Parking: 1 space per multifamily unit = 126 spaces

Provided Parking:

• Proposed New Parking: 8 ADA + 75 Standard = 83 new spaces
• Truman Park Waterfront Parking: 16 Spaces through a parking agreement with the City
• Bicycle Substitution: 108 new bicycle spaces (in addition to the 13 required) for 27 vehicle spaces (bike parking can be substituted for some parking at a 4-1 ratio)

Total Provided: 126 spaces

In essence, the required 126 car parking spaces on the site are being reduced to 83 for a 34% overall reduction in the amount of new surface parking. Not bad. Some of that (16 spaces) would be made up for by dedicating 16 of the 48 existing parking spaces in the crescent lot adjacent to the project in the Truman Waterfront Park for use exclusively by residents of The Lofts. And the big reduction comes by reducing car parking by 27 spaces and providing parking for 108 additional bicycles instead. So, there will be dedicated parking for 99 cars (83 on the site and 16 in the crescent) and 121 bicycles. Much more in line with the realities of downtown living.

Nagging Questions About that Crescent Shaped Parking Lot

We still don’t understand why only 16 of the 48 parking spaces in the crescent shaped lot, depicted as part of the 3.2 acres in the referendum and initial planning documents, can be used by the project residents. Especially as one member of the Planning Board and our own research have observed, those spaces are never, ever occupied. They just sit empty all year round. If the remaining 32 empty spaces could be used by The Lofts residents too, perhaps Allen Avenue wouldn’t need perpendicular car parking dedicated to private use on public right of way and could be a pedestrian-friendly street. Perhaps some of the land adjacent to the buildings given over to all that asphalt could be used for more landscaping or a tot-lot or fire pits and grills for the residents? Or even a few more units of workforce housing.

We’ll likely never get a satisfactory answer that makes sense on this.

Half a Loaf Is Better Than None And It Is Good the Project Is Moving Forward

So, while we might lament the fact that there’s tons of underutilized parking right next door that could have been used to reduce the amount of land dedicated to new asphalt, we’re inclined to accept half a loaf is better than none. The big picture here is that much needed workforce housing is coming to downtown. And the amount of land dedicated to car parking was in the end reduced by one third. That and there’s much more bicycle parking included in the final project.

More working residents living in the heart of downtown is good for our business district as it brings more local flavor. The central location allows new residents of the project to not have to drive to get to work, shop and play. That can save them some money on the huge cost of owning and operating a vehicle. Win. Win. Win.

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Streets for People / Three Crashes = 3 Bicycle Rider Deaths Leads 2022’s Top 10 Bike, Walk, Transit and Streets for People Stories

Posted on December 16, 2022     Leave a Comment

By Chris Hamilton. This story was written and and published by KONK Life newspaper on December 16, 2022 and is reprinted here with permission. Follow us at Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown on Facebook and check out all our Streets for People stories here.

Breaking ground on an expanded airport. Planning for refurbishing Mallory Square, revitalizing Duval Street, renovating the Diesel Plant and building a new Clinton Square. Introducing Llama scooters, “Key West Rides” On-Demand Transit and maybe soon Freebee transit. Sorry bus stops, QR code Loop stops and Final Mile Lower Keys Shuttle bus stops. Salt Ponds and Smathers Beach bike trails envisioned, and Wickers bike trail planned. Votes on 3.2, Mayor and District IV. A City strategic plan that gets stuff done. Workforce housing at Wreckers Cay opens, nears completion at Garden View and is in planning at The Lofts and Roy’s Trailer Park. Kmart closed. Searstown is bought. N. Roosevelt reimagined. First and Bertha Streets construction goes on and on. Three cars crash into bikes = 3 bicycle rider deaths. These are just some of the bike, walk, transit and streets for people developments that happened during the year.

As 2022 comes to an end, for the fourth year in a row we’re going to try to make some sense of all this and rank the issues we’ve been covering by their importance from number 10 to number 1. We’ll try to provide some insight on our reasoning and updates along the way.

10 – Scooter Share Comes to Key West

Our story Innovative Lama E-Scooter Share Comes to Key West, March 18, 2022 shows the e-revolution finally landed in Key West.  In March, local entrepreneur and hotel owner Marc Meisel opened at 48 e-scooter pilot at his three properties H20 Suites, Santa Maria Suites and Southwinds Motel called Lama Mobility. He needed a Commission-approved pilot because the City is still in the midst of a now going on three-years moratorium on recreational vehicles rentals. 

The service is innovative because, unlike controversial dockless e-scooter shares in other cities that get left on the street, Lama operates as a round trip rental. Putting the scooter away in a dock solves the problem of needing to charge the vehicle. And by putting the docks on private property Mr. Meisel got around the problem the City doesn’t allow these kinds of operations in the City right-of-way – an Achilles heel that doomed attempts at Key West based private bikeshare, public bikeshare and Zipcar carshare. Best of all, anyone at least 18 years of age can use the scooters, not just hotel guests.

The pilot is important because if it proves successful, Mr. Meisel could expand it across the City and even include bikes in the docks in addition to the scooters, thus instantly providing bike AND scooter share. The more options residents, workers and visitors have to get around, the better!

9 – Airport Expansion Can Mean Fewer Cars and Opens Up the Possibility for Two New Bike Trails

A couple months ago the County broke ground on a $100 million expansion of Key West Airport. Our story Airport’s Need for Additional City Land Could Help Spur Salt Ponds and Smathers Beach Locals Bike Trails, February 11, 2022 discusses how the County’s need for a little bit of additional land in the area of the Hawks Missile site may help spur the building of two bike trails identified in the City’s Bike and Pedestrian Master Plan. The Salt Ponds Trail would connect the communities of Ocean Walk, Las Salinas and Seaside with a time-saving and safer short-cut downtown through the back of the airport. The Smathers Beach Trail would provide a safe and time-saving trail from the High School directly to the beach behind the pink Key West By the Sea building. Both trails would be good for local residents and workers.

Our April 8 story Ten Ways to Make Car-Free Key West a Reality for Visitors – Part 1: Marketing, and the April 15 follow-up 10 Ways to make Car-Free Key West a Reality for Visitors – Part 2: Services, Infrastructure and Policies discusses how the airport expansion means fewer cars on our island IF we do the following:

1. Educate visitors they don’t need a car – before they get here.
2. Educate visitors about transportation options – once they’ve arrived.
3. Direct visitor to existing long-term lots with better wayfinding.
4. Enlist the help of recreational vehicle rental companies.
5. End free on-street parking for visitors.
6. Make the Duval Loop every 15 minutes, again.
7. Install more green paint and bike racks.
8. Lift the moratorium on recreational vehicles.
9. Build the parking lot/garage on Stock Island.
10. Increase ferries and add “buses-as-flights.” 

Key West is getting more and more visitors and most of them arrive by car. This makes the airport expansion important because it provides an opportunity to get these travelers onto bikes, buses, and e-scooters to get around. IF we make it easy for them to use these options. The choice is ours.

8 – City Adopts E-Bike/E-Scooter Regulations

In our most read story of the year Here’s the Real Lowdown on the Do’s and Don’ts for E-Bikes and E-Scooters in Key West, January 28, 2022 we discussed e-bikes and e-scooters. Everyone has seen more and more of these vehicles. And while they provide a real and inexpensive alternative for residents to commute and get around, lots of people find their speed and use on our sidewalks dangerous. So, the City Commission adopted some new rules based on changes at the State level. That’s important! We went into the details about how all of this came about and the fine distinctions in the law, but here’s a summary of the new rules:

• Bicycles MAY ride on sidewalks but must YIELD right-of-way to pedestrians.
• E-vehicles may NOT ride on sidewalks.
• E-powered ADA mobility devices MAY ride on sidewalks.
• E-vehicles MAY ride on multi-use paths that include the promenades.
• E-vehicles may NOT go faster than 15 mph on multi-use paths.
• E-vehicles/ADA mobility devices must YIELD right-of-way to pedestrians.
  

7 – Workforce Housing Coming to Downtown; But Parking Issues Remain

That we need more affordable workforce housing in Key West is something we can all agree on. In our story 3 Reasons You May Not Have Thought of for Voting YES on 3.2 on January 18, January 7, 2022 we talked about how:

1. More locals living downtown creates a more local focused, less touristy vibe and that’s good for our historic business district,
2. Housing downtown makes it easier to bike, walk and use transit to get around, and 
3. Not being car dependent brings livability costs down even further for residents of the project.

But even as we applauded that the referendum passed to give A.H. Monroe a 99-year lease on City land in Bahama Village next to the Truman Waterfront Park to build 126 units called The Lofts, we were concerned about the then proposed 189 surface parking spaces. Especially given the abundant and little-used parking on surrounding properties. We detailed those concerns, as well as conducted a parking study and presented alternatives for reducing the amount of surface parking and turning the land saved from asphalt into amenities for the residents or even more units in our story Too Much Surface Parking at The Lofts Is a Wasteful Use of Valuable Downtown Land, February 3, 2022. We’ll note that the project is still making its way through the Planning process, and we hope City leaders wake up to the fact that the proposed abundant and ugly surface parking looks like it belongs on the mainland in Boca Raton and not in a compact, historic downtown. We need the City to consider sharing the use of some of the unused Truman Waterfront Park parking and reducing the asphalt on this site. 

6 – Kmart Closes and Searstown Plaza Being Bought by Publix Provides Opportunity to Reimagine Sites Into Island-Friendly Centers With Workforce Housing

In January we learned that Kmart was closing in March and that the Publix Corporation had bought the entire Searstown Plaza. In our third most popular story of the year Time to Reimagine Car-Centric, Mainland Style Searstown and Kmart into Island-Friendly Centers with Housing, January 21, 2022 we talked about the possibilities these two news items presented. We discussed in detail how Publix was building mixed-use, urban centers with housing in other parts of the country and how the City had some incentives to redevelop with workforce housing and what it could look like. We closed with:

“Kmart closing and Searstown being bought by Publix offer a golden opportunity to remake these mainland style, suburban parking lots into mixed-use centers that are nice to look at, more pedestrian and bicycle friendly and that include a mix of uses, including much needed affordable workforce housing, that exude Key West charm….In the end our whole island will be better for remaking these outdated strip shopping centers, that look like they belong in another place and time, not our beloved Key West.”

5 – New Housing Comes to Stock Island Sparking Need for Better Transit and Bike Facilities Between the Islands

Stock Island was in the news a lot this year as the 280-unit Wreckers Cay started opening buildings for occupancy in September, the 104-unit Garden View Apartments is fast under construction, Roy’s Trailer Park was sold to be redeveloped from 108 trailers to 240 workforce apartments and 148 transient condos were approved at the Key West Harbor Yacht Club. That’s a lot of new housing. So in stories Stock Island and Lower Keys Workforce Housing Needs Frequent Transit, March 11, 2022 and Traffic Nightmare Looms as 132 Housing Units Added to 700 in the Pipeline on Stock Island and the Lower Keys, May 20, 2022 we detailed what’s happening and made the case for the City and County to ramp up transit to serve all these new residents lest U.S. Route 1 and the Cheryl H. Cates Bridge get overrun by cars.

In our story Freebee On-Demand Ride-Hailing-to-Transit Might Provide Stock Island Residents With Reason to Leave Their Cars at Home, July 22, 2022 we talked about an $850,000 project the County is considering to provide residents with an Uber-like lift to a future long-haul frequent transit service direct to downtown as a partial solution. And in our story Wreckers Cay and County Need to Do Better By New Residents Who Want to Ride Bikes Between Stock Island and Key West, September 2, 2022 we detailed how woefully inadequate the current efforts are to help new residents at Wreckers Cay to bike to Key West.

We can’t keep building car-dependent housing for workers five+ miles from downtown and not provide them with good, reliable, and safe bus and bike options, otherwise all these new residents will drive and worsen our traffic and parking congestion.

4 –Key West Transit Starts to Turn Around a Sinking Ship

Buffeted by Covid, a shortage of workers and a lack of investment in the system our Key West Transit bus service has been rocked by declining ridership over the last few years. We’ve amply covered this decline in stories including this year in The Sorry State of Key West Bus Stops Revisited – What’s Happening One Year Later, May 6, 2022   and Duval Loop Ridership is Plummeting. Save the Duval Loop! June 3, 2020, where we discussed the awful state of bus stops on the Duval Loop, City Routes, and Lower Keys Shuttle and how this combined with a lack of frequency and non-branded plain white buses was causing ridership on the Loop to nosedive. But toward the second half of the year, it seemed things started to change a bit for the better.

In our story Staff Takes Bull By Horns and Upgrades Embarrassing Duval Loop Bus Stop Signs, August 20, 2022 we talked about how some enterprising staff took it upon themselves to not wait for a bigger fix a few years out and instead fabricated some quick but elegant signs with a QR Code that takes people to real-time information on the whereabouts of the next Duval Loop bus. It works wonderfully. And then last month in City to Begin Work On Making It Easy to Bike to lower Keys Shuttle and Enhancing Bus Stops from Marathon to Key West, November 4, 2022 we detailed a $1.4 million project, now underway, to add bike racks, information signs, lights and trash/recycle cans to 74 Lower Keys Shuttle bus stops between Marathon and Key West. And the transit agency says they have plans to duplicate this project on the rest of the stops in Key West in the coming years. That’s a big deal for a system that has third-world level bus stops.

As we’ve documented in many stories over the last couple of years the buses have been getting less frequent and the ridership has been declining. Seeing no way to hire enough drivers to increase frequency substantially on fixed-route lines, Key West Transit is trying something completely out of the box. Instead, like Uber, they’ll run a bus when a customer requests a ride. In stories City’s Uber-Like On-Demand Transit Service is Back On Track, June 24, 2022 and Key West Transit’s Uber-Like On-Demand “Key West Rides” Service Begins November 30, November 18, 2022 we discuss the behind the scenes maneuvering to make this happen and how the system works. The new on-demand service called “Key West Rides” started November 30 and by January 1 the North and South Line fixed-routes will disappear, meaning if you want a bus ride on Key West or Stock Island, you’ll need to download the app and request a trip. So far over 400 people have done so.

In our story Key West Transit’s New On-Demand Service Is Off and Running. Now the City Needs to Put Real Marketing Money Into It, December 9, 2022, we talked about how the City needs to spend some real money and hire a marketing contractor to leverage the investment in the new way of riding and make sure it is successful. If it is, that’s good for our residents and workers especially and that’s why this was such an important development coming in at #4.

3 – Downtown Revitalization Back On Track

For a few years we’ve championed investing in our historic downtown. It’s the reason for our Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown name and “Streets for People” column. Key West citizens have long discussed and tried to grapple with refurbishing Mallory Square, revitalizing Duval Street, renovating the historic Diesel Plant, building housing on the 3.2-acre Bahama Village site, and cleaning up Clinton Square in front of the Custom’s House for a decade plus. We lamented that the history of each project was strewn with false promises, hopeful beginnings, and dashed dreams. In a story at the beginning of the year, Mallory Square, Diesel Plant, Duval Street and Bahama Village Housing Projects Create Synergy to Bolster Downtown, January 14, 2022 we discussed how we could start to see light at the end of the tunnel as each of these projects was just getting underway.

In a story this fall, Progress on Five Historic District Projects means More Life, Locals, Prosperity, and Resiliency for Our Downtown, October 21, 2022, we talked about how the accountability built into the City’s Strategic Plan (see our #1 item) was delivering real progress on all five of these projects. Clinton Square Park is now under construction. The planning process for the Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square Master Plan is well underway and will be completed this winter. Interim work on the Diesel Plant will start soon and a solicitation for a developer will happen in the spring. The Lofts at Bahama Village are expected to start construction in the spring too. And the new Duval Street Economic Corridor Resiliency and Revitalization Plan process completed ranking planning firms to be hired in October. A vendor should be under contract shortly.

The actions, all happening in quick and overlapping succession, with plenty of resident and business community input, are giving us a synergy to bolster our entire historic downtown commercial district, the lifeblood of our city, for decades to come. It means more prosperity for our local Mom-and-Pop shops, a more locals focused destination for residents and enhanced experiences for visitors. THAT’s why this is such an important story and comes in at #3.

2 – Three Bicyclist’s Deaths Bring Bicycle Safety Concerns to Forefront

Sadly, and tragically, there were three instances of cars crashing into bikes that resulted in three deaths by bicyclists on Stock Island and Key West in 2022. In each case the person on the bicycle was following the rules of the road. We chronicled two of the three deaths in our story Two Fatal Bike Crashes This Week Are Two Too Many. Here’s 10 Things To Make Bicycling Safer, November 12, 2022. 

In the story we provided data about how Key West is full of cars AND bikes and that’s different than most cities. As we are different, we suggested 10 things we should do:

1 – Slow down. This ain’t the mainland.
2 – Educate visitors this isn’t the mainland and that they must behave differently on our little island’s streets.
3 – Enforce existing speed limits.
4 – Engineer our streets for slower speeds.
5 – Invest in new and upgraded bicycle facilities
6 – Connect all of our bicycle facilities in one seamless network.
7 – For a change, let’s choose people on bikes over car storage and convenience.
8 – Do something about N. Roosevelt Boulevard.
9 – Safety in numbers: Get more people, especially visitors out of their cars.
10 – Install speed and red-light cameras and eliminate right-turn-on-red.

It doesn’t help matters that the County and City have for years been behind the eight-ball when it comes to putting in infrastructure that would make bicycling safer. The elephant in the room is our story Construction on First and Bertha Street Doesn’t Follow the Bike Plan. Is It Too Late? July 8, 2022, where we lay out the sad reality that when the County and City were presented with an opportunity to put in a bike facility, called for in the City’s adopted Bike/Ped Plan, on an important cross island throughway, they chose to ignore making it safer for bikes and put in parking instead. THIS has been repeated in street projects across the City. Duval Street, Simonton Street, Whitehead Street, Front Street, and Palm Avenue have all been resurfaced and rebuilt in the last two years. And it is going to happen in the future on S. Roosevelt – they just haven’t started construction yet. In every case the Bike/Ped plan calls for bicycle facilities on these streets and roads. And in Every. Single. Case. The City and County put or will put the road back together with a shiny new surface and the same old parking spaces that were there before. No new bike facilities. Not even green paint. You’ll hear City officials tout the new and improved asphalt. Yep. That’s nice. But it’s lipstick on a pig when it comes to making our streets safer for people on bicycles.

In our story 10 Things to Make It Safer to Bike from the 667 New Housing Units on Stock Island to Key West, June 17, 2022 we lay out the case for 10 things the City and County can do to make it safer for people to bike between the two islands and in our story Wreckers Cay and County Need to Do Better By New Residents Who Want to Ride Bikes Between Stock Island and Key West, September 2, 2022 we lay out similar arguments. We’re still waiting to hear from any officials that they hear bicyclist’s plight.

Three deaths in one year are a wakeup call to County and City officials that more needs to be done. This isn’t rocket science. The City spends $6 million annually on transit service. They spend god awful amounts on parking amenities. On bike infrastructure, its only thousands of dollars unless the State gives the City money in grant funds like with the bike racks for the Final Mile Grant or the Wickers Field Bike Trail. It is time to turn the car-centric paradigm upside down and finally spend some real money on bike facilities, green paint, signs, and marketing and education to make our islands safer to bike on. THAT’s why this story is #2 in our countdown.

1 – Mayor’s Re-Election and Strategic Plan Help Get Things Done and THAT Bodes Well for the Future

We want our top story to end on a more hopeful note. Despite the fact that people on bikes feel unsafe and that people who want to take the bus still don’t have a proven and reliable alternative to driving just yet, there’s hope on the horizon. That hope starts with our story PeopleforBikes’ 2022 City Ratings Ranks Key West 15^th in North America. What Can We Achieve If We Really Try? Our Mayor Says #1, July 1, 2022. Of 1,105 cities rated by PeopleforBikes, Key West rated #15 as a best biking city. Yay! But the data reveled that the reason we ranked so high was because we’re flat, compact and have good weather – so lots of us bike. Not necessarily because of anything the City or County have done to make using a bike safe and easy. But the good news is that our Mayor and City officials understand this. Here’s Mayor Johnston’s response to the PeopleforBikes ranking:

“We are moving in the right direction but frustratingly slowly. As gas prices increase, this is a perfect time to offer our locals a cost-effective way to get to and from work and our guests a healthy alternative to driving which can reduce noise and congestion on our streets. I continue to be concerned about the number of our streets that are ranked “high stress” by the people who actually ride on them even after we have lowered our speed limits. Our guests are getting on bikes sometimes for the first time since they were teenagers, so it is important that we continue to improve bicycle safety throughout our island.

Having said that, we are awaiting the results from engineering on the feasibility of a one-way street grid that would accommodate a dedicated bicycle lane on each street to improve bicycle safety and reduce congestion. Unfortunately, we squandered an opportunity to incorporate “complete streets” to the long-awaited South Roosevelt Boulevard road construction project which could have taken bicycles off of the sidewalk and given them a safe, dedicated bicycle lane. Once again, we missed an opportunity to add bicycle lanes on First and Bertha. We cannot improve our bicycle safety unless bicycle lanes are prioritized at the beginning of every city infrastructure project.

The Commission voted unanimously to focus on advancing our Bicycle/Pedestrian Master Plan (circa 1996, 2010, 2019) via our Strategic operational plan by adding bike rack space for 128 bikes at bus stops via the Final Mile program by August and another 250 bikes by the end of this month, enhancing 10 intersections for bicycle safety starting in September and initiate a shared street pilot program by December of this year.

We have a perfect island to bike around. We have limited space to accommodate a great number of competing interests. We must use our space more efficiently and thoughtfully in the future.  I maintain high hopes that we are the #1 bicycling small community in the near future.”

In our story Key West Mayoral and District IV Candidates in Their Own Words on Bike, Walk and Transit Issues, August 5, 2022 we go into detail about how our Mayor understands the shortcomings of past bicycle and transit actions and is determined to make it better. In short, our says our Mayor on bikes:

“As Mayor, I will continue to prioritize dedicated bicycle lanes and complete streets on all new road construction in Key West.” And on transit: “The solution is to provide a free, frequent and reliable public transportation system.” Her vision is extraordinary. 

Our story The Mayor’s Strategic Plan is Helping the City Bureaucracy Get Stuff Done, September 16, 2022 provides the crux for a hopeful future on bike, walk, transit and streets for people issues. 

Key West has a reputation for muddling along and well, let’s face it, not addressing the big things. Decades later we wonder how our problems got so bad. Think our lack of affordable workforce housing, our crumbling roads and sidewalks, traffic and parking congestion, our moribund transit system and withering on the vine projects such as Duval Street, Mallory Square, the Diesel Plant and so much more. Not to mention sea level rise and our degrading environment. But Mayor Johnston said we could do better by developing and following a strategic plan to do the things the citizens think are the most important. And to her credit she got that plan developed and passed.

What’s amazing, rather than in the finest Key West tradition of putting the plan on the shelf and congratulating themselves, she insisted on some mechanisms for accountability and implementation. And lo and behold, during the past year, a TON of stuff has been accomplished. Everything we just mentioned is in the works. Most of the stories from a new transit service, better bike facilities, plans for Mallory Square, Duval Street, affordable housing, and so much more in the above-mentioned articles are because they are embedded in the Strategic Plan. 

There’s no question the Plan is concentrating the Manager, department heads and staff on what’s essential and not just responding to the loudest complainers in a game of whack a mole as bureaucracies tend to do when they aren’t pointed in the right direction. The results from 2022 and the new momentum make the next few years look even more fruitful. That means a better Key West future for all of us and THAT’S why this is our #1 story of the year. HOPE!

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And for those that are interested, here’s a look at our most popular stories for 2022 as measured by readership:

10 – 10 Things To Make It Safer to Bike From the 667 New Housing Units on Stock Island to Key West, June 17, 2022
9 – Ian’s Lesson: Key West Infrastructure Needs to Be as Resilient as Its People, October 7, 2022
8 – The Sorry State of Key West Bust Stops Revisited – What’s Happening One Year Later, May 6, 2022
7 – Innovative Lama E-Scooter Share Comes to Key West, March 18, 2022
6 – Traffic Nightmare Looms as 132 New Housing Units Added to Over 700 in the Pipeline on Stock Island and Lower Keys, May 20, 2022
5 – Key West Mayoral and District IV Candidates in Their Own Words on Bike, Walk and Transit Issues, August 5, 2022
4 – Two Fatal Bike Crashes This Week Are Two Too Many. Here’s 10 Things to Make Bicycling Safer, November 12, 2022
3 – Time to Reimagine Car-Centric, Mainland Style Searstown and Kmart Into Island-Friendly Centers with Housing, January 21, 2022
2 – Stock Island and Lower Keys Workforce Housing Needs Frequent Transit, March 11, 2022
1 – Here’s the Real Lowdown on the Do’s and Don’ts for E-Bikes and E-Scooters in Key West, January 28, 2022

End of Year Top 10 Stories from Previous Years

Streets for People / Countdown of 2021’s Most Important Bike, Walk and Transit Stories – Is Our Glass Half Full or Half Empty? Part 2: The Case for a Glass Half Full Year  December 17, 2021

Streets for People / Countdown of 2021’s Most Important Bike, Walk and Transit Stories – Is Our Glass Half Full or Half Empty? Part 1: The Case for a Glass Half Empty Year  December 10, 2021

Streets for People / Counting Down the Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2021 November 26, 2021

Streets for People / Countdown of the 10 Most Important Bike, Walk and Transit Stories of 2019 and 2020 Revisited December 3, 2021

Welcome to the Key West Bike, Walk, Transit and Streets for People Top 10 Stories for 2020 December 19, 2020

Recap of Friends of Car-Free Key West Top Stories of 2019 December 18, 2020

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Streets for People / Key West Transit’s New On-Demand Service Is Off and Running. Now the City Needs to Put Real Marketing Money Into It

Posted on December 9, 2022     Leave a Comment

By Chris Hamilton. This story was written and and published by KONK Life newspaper on December 9, 2022 and is reprinted here with permission. Follow us at Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown on Facebook and check out all our Streets for People stories here. 

On November 30 Key West Transit launched its innovative Uber-like on-demand transit service called “Key West Rides.” In just a week over 410 people have downloaded the app and a couple hundred people have taken one, two or five plus rides. This is a promising start. The Transit Director tells us that they are currently focusing their efforts on transitioning existing customers to the new way of riding.  

We’re rooting for Key West Rides to succeed because a healthy, green and prosperous island needs a well-functioning transit system as an alternative to the congestion and pollution the increasing number of vehicles brings to our paradise. Our beleaguered workforce needs decent options they can depend on, and we want visitors to bike or ride the bus. So, we’re perplexed that in a $5.7 M transit budget only about $30,000 is dedicated to marketing. The City spends almost $300,000 marketing the Historic Seaport, the TDC spends godawful amounts of money on general advertising and gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations across the city to advertise events and destinations. So, why doesn’t someone provide our little transit system with some real money and real help via some marketing vendors?

There’s no substitute for frequent, easy-to-use service. And Key West Transit is working on doing just that. But studies show that you can get a 10 to 30 percent increase in the investment of putting bus service on the street by reaching out to people and educating them about the service and how to use it. You’d be surprised at the number of people who are intimidated about using a bus. Likewise branding and marketing can enhance existing riders experience and attract new riders to try the system. In a tourist town, where there’s constant turnover, this is even more important.

Market research also indicates that once someone tries a product, they are more likely to come back. But you’ve got to get them to try it first. We’d like to suggest to our friends at the City that they take marketing their bus service way more seriously because it’s good for the system’s bottom line. With this in mind here’s a baker’s dozen things the City should be doing to market the Key West Transit family of services: Key West Rides, the Duval Loop, and the Lower Keys Shuttle.

Current Key West Transit Marketing Efforts

We asked Transit Director Rod Delostrinos what marketing things they were doing for the new service beyond the few social media posts we’d seen. Here is his thoughtful response:

“We are currently running both fixed route and demand response during this soft launch. Our current focus is on transitioning the current ridership (generally transit dependent customers) to the on-demand transit. Beside the marketing items you have seen, all buses are handing out flyers. We are also posting flyers at every bus stop. We are scheduling presentations at the Senior Center, Poinciana Gardens, and in Bahama Village. We also have On Demand Transit information on the Infotransit screens on the Gillig buses. From there we will widen our marketing efforts to radio PSAs, more in-person presentations, and expand to print advertising. As we are still short staffed and learning the ins and outs of the system, this crawl, walk, run approach seems the best strategy to provide the best service possible. I want to improve Customer Experience rather than focus increased ridership numbers. I believe the former will fuel the latter.”

We like the Director’s approach and emphasis on improving the customer experience first rather than focus on getting people on board right away. But in a few months, when all the kinks are worked out and they’ve stopped running the North and South Line fixed routes, the City needs to give Rod’s team the tools to market all three of the services at a higher level than what is currently being imagined. Here’s how:

A Baker’s Dozen Things Key West Transit Can Do to Better Market Themselves

Branding, marketing, outreach, and education isn’t done as a means unto themselves but rather to get butts in seats. Good communications leverage the investment in the service itself and gets you more riders per dollar of investment. The Small Business Administration says that companies should spend between seven and 12 percent of an annual budget on marketing. Our cursory look at Key West Transit’s budget shows that Promotional Expenses are about $30,000 or half of one percent (0.005%). Suffice it to say, a lot more resources need to be allocated here. With even just a five percent marketing budget of about $300,000 one could likely do most of the items here. 

1 – Hire Some Help

Key West Transit doesn’t have any marketing or communications staff. The existing team is already stretched thin. We can’t expect them to do the following 12 things well. So why not hire a marketing support team. The Historic Seaport does this. And many for-profit and non-profit and other government agencies do too. Put out the RFP, hire the firm and get the following done.

2 – Brand the Enterprise

Bring in some professionals and brand the entire enterprise. Key West Rides, the Lower Keys Shuttle, and the Duval Loop. Are they all distinct services of the same Key West Transit family? What brings them all together? In 2016/2017 FDOT paid South Florida Commuter Services and an ad agency (the wonderful Diaz Cooper) to come in and brand the Duval Loop from the website to the buses, to the bus stops. It was a job well done. (Here’s the story.) Time to do it for the whole agency.

3 – Develop a Marketing Plan

Once the professionals have gotten the branding straightened out, develop a marketing plan that is tied to the fiscal year and budget. Follow it. 

4 – Create a Communications or Public Relations Center

The agency is too big and important to not have its own communications point person. Maybe this person can be part of the vendor team hired to do the marketing (#1 above). Or if this person is in-house perhaps they can oversee the marketing contract. However it is done, PR is a slightly different skill and practice than marketing, but these days, especially with social media, they go hand in hand. Think of this as the system’s own, part-time Alyson Crean, who does such an amazing job for the Key West Police and City. Part of communications means putting out reports on ridership, budgets, what’s been done well, and what can be done better (something that isn’t currently done). Importantly, having a communications arm allows Key West Transit to share how it wants the system to grow in the future and what is needed to get there. It creates advocates! Lack of information/transparency sow’s mistrust. 

5 – Ask Existing Customers to Spread the Good Word

To its credit, the Duval Loop has a 4.5 out of 5 rating and is ranked #2 of 11 services in the Key West Transportation (mostly private rental services) category off of 123 reviews on TripAdvisor. This is good news. Make a big deal of this. Ask customers through in-bus advertising to share their experience on TripAdvisor and other rating services and on their own social media. And these positive comments should be shared on kwtransit.com and its social media channels. (Of course, that means redoing the website and starting some social media…)

6 – Rebuild the Key West Transit Web Site

Yes, the mobile version of the website is quick and easy to use, and so is the new Key West Rides app, but for the other 50% of people who often use a traditional desktop instead of a mobile device, the current Key West Transit website doesn’t build confidence in the system. There’s a number of good firms on the island who could rebuild the site in a jiffy. Let’s do it! 

7 – Do Social Media

Hard to believe but Key West Transit doesn’t have its own social media presence. It isn’t like they need to be everywhere, all the time, but come on now, at least get a Facebook page. This is low-hanging fruit these days. We don’t even need to elaborate.

8 – Reach Key West Workers Through Their Employers

Employers can influence how their employees get to work – use the connection to get more people riding the bus. In transportation demand management (TDM) research, the number one strategy for influencing commute behavior is working with employers. Key West Transit should develop an easy-to-use portal on their new website for employers to become partners with the agency. Key West Transit can provide each employer with a big map of the transit system/info to display in a break room with bus schedules. They can provide discounted passes for Key West Rides and Lower Keys Shuttle.

9 – Reach Key West Visitors Through Hotels, Inns, B&Bs and Vacation Rental Companies

Without fail one of the first questions front-desk and concierge people get asked is how do I get around? Rather than have these folks send these customers looking for rental cars and noisy, smoke spewing rental scooters wouldn’t it be nice if their first instinct was to share information about the Duval Loop and other buses along with bike rentals? But in order for this to occur Key West Transit needs to make it easy to do so by providing lots of map and schedule information and QR Codes flyers. Perhaps a framed route map on the wall or something that can be laid out on the desk. Simple take-one boxes that are constantly restocked and reminders of the website address so people can type it into their smartphone. Hotel staff have a million other things to do, so make it easy on them. Join the Lodging Association and attend their events.

10 – Develop a Strong Ground Game

Look around town for some great examples of a strong ground game. Start with each of the major water sports companies or Key West Finest and their On and Off Duval Guides and Info boxes. They all have excellent maps and brochures. Their people make sure these are stocked at all the lodging and take-one boxes across the island. Their people regularly visit lodging staff to make sure they have information and are up to date on the latest offering and specials. Copy this approach and do it in-house or hire it out as there are a number of companies that specialize in this. That way Key West Transit can reach the employers, lodging and retail people to carry the system’s information to the potential end users.

11 – Partner with Others

 Key West Transit should have their routes, especially the Loop, on as many of the maps and guides around town as possible. Don’t expect companies to simply do this as a public service. Key West Transit must barter, trade, and pay to get there. A partnership is a two-way street and that way everyone wins. Make sure Key West Transit are members of and active participants in the Lodging Association, the Business Guild, the Chamber, Mom n Pop Key West and others.

12 – Put Information at the Bus Stops

The point of purchase – or the bus stop – is one of the best places to sell the product. But you actually have to put map and schedule information at every stop. You have to brand the stop as part of the system, so it looks like the bus, the website and marketing materials. As well as a sign that tells you what route this is and how to use it. While we have some hope because of the Final Mile bus stop project, this needs to become a priority now for the new Key West Rides service.

13 – Promote ALL Alternatives to the Car, Not Just the Bus

Studies show that transportation choice and options are what people want. Those who use one form of alternative transportation, like a bike, are more likely to want to use another mode, like the bus, or a scooter or Uber, Lyft and taxis. So Key West Transit should promote and provide information for all alternative modes. People today often like to make one-way trip decisions, perhaps taking the bus in to work and catching a taxi home. Being a one-stop shop for all the alternatives to driving is a way to lift ridership on the bus. Hmmm… perhaps there’s already a brand that can do that…. say, like Car-Free Key West. So whatever branding Key West Transit comes up with needs to work with and be coordinated with Car-Free Key West. Better yet, the same agency hired to help transit should do the whole thing.

A Small Investment In Marketing Leverages Big Rewards

Nothing would move the needle on increasing transit ridership like more frequent service on the Duval Loop and Lower Keys Shuttle and success on Key West Rides on-demand service. But research also tells us that you get more use out of whatever service you put on the street if you market it well. This is something the City hasn’t learned, and they’ve hamstrung Key West Transit by not providing them enough resources. City leaders need to allocate the money now. Doing otherwise is pennywise and pound foolish. 

Getting more people to ride the bus helps our island’s workers, residents, and visitors. It helps us combat congestion and parking issues and cleans up our environment. It makes us healthier and helps our Mom-and-Pop businesses thrive. So, let’s help our transit system help the island by giving them the marketing resources to get the job done.

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You can find two years’ worth of KONK Life Streets for People column articles here.

Streets for People / Key West Transit’s Uber-Like On-Demand “Key West Rides” Service Begins November 30

Posted on November 18, 2022     Leave a Comment

By Chris Hamilton. This story was written and and published by KONK Life newspaper on November 18, 2022 and is reprinted here with permission. Follow us at Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown on Facebook and check out all our Streets for People stories here. 

The City announced this week that Key West Transit’s new “Key West Rides” Uber-like, on-demand bus service begins on Wednesday, November 30. On that day the two North and South Lines that snake their way from Stock Island to downtown via different fixed City routes will disappear. In their place customers anywhere in Key West and Stock Island will be able to use an app on their smartphone to request a ride, from 6 am to 8 pm, to be picked up and then taken between any of 160+ bus stops throughout the service area. The matching technology will group riders going in a similar direction for quick and efficient shared trips at the same $2 per trip price as current City routes. Duval Loop and Lower Keys Shuttle routes will remain as they are today.

First proposed during the summer of 2021 budget process as a way to cope with a lack of bus drivers, this innovation is welcome news because a healthy, green, and prosperous island needs a well-functioning transit system as an alternative to the congestion and pollution the increasing number of cars brings to our paradise. And our beleaguered workforce needs decent options like this (and bicycling) to help cope with the spiraling costs of commuting by car on top of already other-worldly housing costs. Our story looks behind the scenes on how this came about, provides some more details, and looks to future iterations and improvements.

Driver Shortage = Lack of Frequent Service = Declining Ridership

In the two years’ before Covid, annual ridership on Key West Transit’s Duval Loop, City Routes and Lower Key’s Shuttle totaled 620,071 and 652,404 and then fell by half in 2020-2021 to just 352,500. Even as the island’s economy rebounded with record numbers of visitors, transit ridership continued to plummet. In the just completed 2021-2022 fiscal year that ended last month on September 30, only 223,863 rides were taken. That’s just about 1/3 the rides taken a few years ago. U.S. Census data shows less than one percent (1%) or almost no one takes the bus to commute to work.

Part of the problem is a lack of qualified bus drivers due to our housing-crunch. Without drivers, service levels haven’t been what they were pre-Covid. With buses running less frequently, people can’t depend on it and ridership drops. 

Transit advocates, I included, have lobbied the City to ramp up the dismal frequencies on the different routes to attract more residents, workers, and visitors to ride. The City routes only come by every 80 – 95 minutes, the Lower Keys Shuttle every 90 – 120 minutes and even the Duval Loop only comes by every 30-40 minutes these days. Research shows that if these frequencies were every 15-20 minutes more people would use the service. But the reality is, more frequent service needs more drivers, and this isn’t currently possible given our housing/worker crisis. When I asked Rod Delostrinos, Key West Transit Director about driver pay here’s what he said:

“The City Commission has approved the reclassification of the driver positions resulting in higher pay. The driver vacancies are slowly being filled, but we are still short drivers. The compensation along with other benefits package the City of Key West offers will hopefully persuade current drivers to continue with us and new candidates to apply.”

On-Demand Service To the Rescue

Anticipating the driver shortage is a longer-term issue, and thus the frequency problem wasn’t going to be solved quickly, Mr. Delostrinos and his team came up with the on-demand service as a solution during the budget process in the summer of 2021. Here’s how he put the difference between operating on fixed-routes and on-demand when we chatted this summer:

“On-demand transit allows for the City of Key West to use its transit resources more efficiently. Transit vehicles within the city area will eventually operate only with trip requests thus eliminating empty or near empty vehicles from continuous circling of set routes. Fuel savings, better personnel utilization given a 55% shortage of CDL (Commercial Driver’s License) drivers, and reduction in carbon emissions are a few of the anticipated positive impacts.”

As Key West Transit staff is already stretched thin, in June the City Commission approved a $248,880 competitive bid exemption contract with Via Transportation, Inc. to provide Key West Transit with the hardware, software, training, marketing, and support to operate the program. We give Rod and his team credit for trying something completely different and partnering with a private sector transportation company for support. After more than a year of planning, it is now all coming together. Says Mayor Teri Johnston: 

“I am thrilled to get the on-demand service up and running. As new housing units are added in and around Key West, this service can offer a cost effective and reliable way to get to and from work, save some money, reduce our street congestion, noise levels, parking issues and pollution all while lowering our stress levels.”

Key West Rides On-Demand Transit Service Explained

If you scan the QR code in the above promo flyer it takes you here. The easiest way to explain how to use the service is to say it works very similarly to Uber, meaning you use an app on your smartphone to request a ride. The free Key West Rides app will be available on Google Play and iOS App Store on November 23. Here’s how Key West Transit explains it:

“Trips must start and end within the designated service area. After booking a ride, the app will display the pick-up location where the vehicle will meet you. This is a bus stop -to- bus stop service so that you will be picked up and dropped off close as possible to your destination. Since this is a shared ride service, you may board with others in the vehicle or stop to pick up others. Key West Rides On-Demand currently has only one zone in Key West, including Stock Island. Check the zone and bus stops out in this interactive map.”

We’ve been told that Key West Transit will be taking calls in-house for those that don’t have smartphones. We don’t have a number yet. When we asked about anticipated wait times Rod told us: “Since wait times are affected on the number of riders, it would be difficult to speculate.”

As with an Uber, you’ll be able to track the progress of your ride on the app. The big difference from Uber is that you’ll still have to pay for your ride the old-fashioned way. With cash or a pass. Rides are $2 per trip, $4 for a One Day Pass, $8 for a 7-Day Pass and $25 for a 31-Day Pass. There are discounts for students, disabled/disadvantaged, military, and seniors. It would be nice in the future if you could pay using a credit card stored on your app. NOTE: Since we published this post Ryan Stachurski, the City’s Multi-Modal Transportation Coordinator tells us you CAN pay with your phone using the Token Transit app available for Apple or Android. We looked into it. Not many people have downloaded it, but this would be especially useful if you were going to purchase one of the passes. While not as convenient as paying on Uber, perhaps someday you’ll be able to pay with the Key West Rides app for a more seamless experience.

The other difference from Uber is that this isn’t a door-to-door service. You pinpoint your desired beginning and ending points and the app directs you to the nearest bus stops. So, all those stops are on existing routes. We don’t yet know if they’ll be adding stops in places where no routes currently exist, like in parts of Midtown. Regarding if there will be any information at those stops initially the Transit Director says: “Eventually all stops will have information on “how to use” the On-Demand Transit. The information will available on flyers on the bus, websites, and brochures at various locations.”

It would be nice if you could rate your ride like on Uber too. But then again, look at the savings. Your ride is only $2 instead of $20!

Staffing and Data Can Help Shape Future Service Expansions

When we asked Mr. Delostrinos if there were any plans to go beyond 8 pm yet he told us: 

“Not at this time. The service level is based on staffing. If this program is successful, service hours and staffing level increases could be discussed during the next fiscal year’s budget preparation.”

The Transportation Director also notes that analyzing the customer data – where people get picked up, dropped off and when – generated by the on-demand system will enable his team to potentially develop new efficient fixed route, circulator and/or express services in the future. He said:

“The key to determining better service is to analyze the first few months of on-demand transit service, recognize emerging ridership patterns, and possibly develop additional transit service such as limited express bus.” 

The tracking from the app should provide a treasure-trove of useful data. 

Potential Freebee Micro-Transit Service On Stock Island Tie In

In our story “Freebee On-Demand Ride-Hailing-to-Transit Might Provide Stock Island Residents With Reason to Leave Their Cars at Home,” July 22, 2022 we discussed the County’s $850,000 experimental project to use little Freebee golf cart like vehicles to take people from their homes on Stock Island to a long-haul fixed route shuttle that would then take people from Stock Island to downtown. In order for this to work, Key West Transit would need to provide that long-haul service. Currently the Lower Keys Shuttle only comes by 10 times a day or about every hour and a half to two hours. If the on-demand project is successful at providing more service with less drivers as officials anticipate and if the City is successful at recruiting more drivers, perhaps a long-haul shuttle can be initiated, or Lower Keys Shuttle buses can become much more frequent. Then the Freebee tie in would work much better. So, a lot of potential future service could be riding on the success of Key West Rides.

Bus Stop Upgrades Coming Soon

In our story “City to Begin Work On Making It Easy to Bike to Lower Keys Shuttle and Enhancing Bus Stops from Marathon to Key West,” November 4, 2022 we talked about how the City is beginning construction on a $1.4 million dollar project to install bicycle racks and bike lockers, map and schedule information, hail or flagging devices, trash and recycle bins, lights, and even some fix-it stations at 74 bus stops between Marathon and Key West. While this project is mostly aimed at Lower Keys Shuttle bus stops, the City anticipates following this up and doing something similar at all the remaining Duval Loop and Key West Rides bus stops. Making the bus stops an attractive place to wait and providing information on how to use the service will be a key in an overall better experience for existing riders and for attracting new riders.

Key West Ride’s Success Is a Win for All of Us

The last few years haven’t been kind to our island’s little transit system. Declining ridership (here and here), third-world-like bus stops (here and here) and disappointing follow-through on planning efforts to improve the system (here, here, here, here, here, here and here) have led many to give up on seeing a genuinely useful resident and worker-friendly transit system on our islands. But the bus stop upgrades, potential micro-transit on Stock Island and now most especially the new Key West Rides on-demand transit getting off the ground gives us reason to hope for better times ahead.

Our Mayor has been tenacious about keeping transit improvements on the front burner. As has our City Manager. Including these improvements in the City’s Strategic Plan has ensured it is being addressed (thanks to Elisa Levy). And good people at Key West Transit (we’re looking at you Rod Delostrinos, Rogelio Hernandez, and Carolyn Haia), and City Hall (Ryan Stachurski and Alison Higgins) are working together as a team to improve transportation options despite being short-staffed. Thanks to all of them!

An improving transit system helps our island’s workers, residents, and visitors by providing another viable cost-effective option, in addition to bikes, to being dependent on driving a car everywhere. It helps us combat congestion and parking issues and cleans up our environment. It makes us healthier and helps our Mom-and-Pop business thrive. So, let’s wish this team success in rolling out Key West Rides. We all win if this works.

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You can find two years’ worth of KONK Life Streets for People column articles here.

Streets for People / Two Fatal Bike Crashes This Week Are Two Too Many. Here’s 10 Things to Make Bicycling Safer

Posted on November 12, 2022     1 Comment

By Chris Hamilton. This story was written and and published by KONK Life newspaper on November 12, 2022 and is reprinted here with permission. Follow us at Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown on Facebook and check out all our Streets for People stories here. Note I took the featured picture at the top of the article. You may have seen it in other news outlets because I shared it with them.

Two bicycle fatalities in Key West this week is two too many. While we don’t yet have the details of these horrible crashes on the 3700 block of N. Roosevelt or on 3^rd Street on Stock Island, we do know that cars hit people on bikes and as a result the bike riders are dead. Whatever the particulars of each crash, that’s a tragedy. This isn’t something new. For decades our locality has been at the top of lists of places unsafe for bicyclists and pedestrians. These crashes emphasize the need for our City and County to work harder on addressing safety. It should also remind residents and visitors to be aware that Key West and Stock Island are full of people on bicycles and that we simply can’t drive like we do on the mainland. Here’s some things we can do as a community to make our streets safer.

Key West is Full of Cars AND Bikes – That’s Different Than Most Places

According to the U.S. Census 15% of Key West residents and 7% of Monroe County residents commute to work by bicycle. In top “bike cities” like Boulder, CO it is about 10%, Portland, OR it is 6% or in Washington, D.C. 5%. In the U.S. on the whole, it’s about 1 percent. In the annual People for Bikes City Ratings Key West residents said they used bicycles to get around more than most cities across the North America. This stat is one of the reasons Key West is ranked #15 as a place to bike. Local bike rental companies have told us they’ve been renting bikes to visitors at record rates the last couple of years. There’s a lot of bikes on our streets.

Traffic congestion has been a top concern here for decades and it is only getting worse. The data shows that 77% of the more than a million visitors who make it all the way to the island of Key West arrive here by car. That’s a lot of cars on top of resident, worker, and business vehicles. Beloved Keys Citizen newspaper and Key West Island News columnist puts it best when she says of Key West traffic – “Unless we ditch some vehicles the island’s gonna sink” explaining that “We’ve got too many motorized things clogging our streets…After all, our streets were laid out a couple hundred years ago. Tiny streets on a tiny island when both people and transportation devices were smaller and fewer. The island simply isn’t built to handle our crowds and must-have SUVs.”

Key West and Stock Island are different than most mainland places because we don’t just have traffic congestion, but we have it coupled with more bikes and pedestrians than most towns and more recently with e-bikes and e-scooters. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that Key West and Monroe County consistently rank among the worst Florida jurisdictions for bicycle crashes. And those same City Ratings said a survey of Key West residents gave us a 46 out of 100 score on Safety – meaning lots of people don’t feel safe biking here. People for Bikes Bicycle Network Analysis Map of Key West shows where those unsafe spots are.

So, if our little island community is different, why do we keep reaching for mainland, car-centric safety solutions? It is time to come up with fixes more attuned to our particular island situation. 

Our Mayor, Teri Johnston’s Response

Our Mayor, Teri Johnston told me this week:

“These 2 fatal bicycle crashes elevate the need for dedicated, connected bicycle lanes throughout our community. We are encouraging our residents and visitors to get out of their cars and onto a bicycle for a multitude of good reasons and they are responding positively. Now it is the City’s responsibility to create a safe way to traverse our island on a bicycle. Not one street should be upgraded without adding the dedicated bicycle lane. Our “one-way” study needs to be completed and recommendations made to the City Commission to move this long-delayed action forward.”

Multi-Modal Transportation Coordinator, Ryan Stachurski’s Response

Ryan Stachurski, the City’s Multi-Modal Transportation Coordinator told me this week:

“The recent collisions are tragic. I don’t think I know anything more than has been reported in the news, and it’ll be some time before the investigation is completed. I have some general comments below relating to safety: We continue to work to make Key West a safer and more comfortable place to walk and bike. As our city has a Vision Zero goal of zero serious roadway injuries by 2035, we have opportunities for improvement. On our website we have a map of scheduled road construction that identifies some of the intersections slated for improvement. There are things we can all do to improve safety for everyone in Key West:

– Pedestrians should cross at crosswalks and obey traffic lights.

– Bicyclists should ride predictably when on roadways and alert passing if using the sidewalk.

– Car drivers should be alert to the numerous bicyclists and scooters frequenting our roads. Avoid distractions like cell phones, observe speed limits, and be particularly vigilant at crosswalks and traffic signals.

Encourage your friends and family to do the same and challenge them when they don’t. We’re one human family after all. If you need a bell or lights for your bike, pick up a free set at the Police Station or City Hall.”

Ten Things to Make Bicycling Safer in Key West and Stock Island

In the broadest sense the solution is about infrastructure and engineering. It is about fixing our streets so that they are rebalanced to favor the safety of pedestrians first, then bikes and then vehicles. Many of the most beloved bike/ped cities in Europe do this with their downtowns. As do the most progressive, bike-friendly North American places. With this in mind, here’s ten things we should do:

1 – Slow Down This Ain’t the Mainland

This old Key West slogan can be taken many ways. But when applied to our streets, we need people in vehicles to take it literally. As we’ve explained, Key West and Stock Island are unlike places on the mainland. We’ve got tons of people on bikes in a small and compact place. So, people in cars can’t simply assume, as they do in car-centric places to the north of us, that everyone else is in a car too. In a town with a preponderance of bikes and pedestrians and e-vehicles the onus of responsibility for safety falls on car drivers because, well, 2-ton vehicles have a higher chance of hurting someone than does a bike. People in cars need to:

• SLOW DOWN! Pay attention. There are lots of pedestrians and bikers out there
• Put down the cell phone. Do not use it while driving
• Pass on the left and must always provide three (3) feet when passing a bike
• Remember, bikes can use the full lane. If behind one, slow down and be patient
• Be attentive at intersections and driveways and check all directions. Bikes and pedestrians can be coming from all directions on sidewalks, even when traffic is going one way
• Do not overtake and pass other vehicles stopped for pedestrians
• STOP when you see flashing lights at the mid-block crosswalks along N. Roosevelt Boulevard. Only proceed once pedestrians and cyclists have exited the crosswalk
• After parking on the street use the “Dutch Reach” (use your right hand furthest from the door) and look for bicycles before opening the door

Slowing down applies to bicycles, especially e-bikes and e-scooters too. Here’s the do’s and don’ts for e-vehicles in Key West. And people on bikes need to be aware of their surroundings, alert and predictable when riding and follow the rules of the road. More safety tips here.

2 – Educate Visitors This Isn’t the Mainland, and They Must Behave Differently On Our Little Island’s Streets

I don’t own a car and I ride my bike all over Key West and Stock Island every day. I generally find that most local residents get it. Locals in cars often ride bikes themselves. Or they have loved ones and friends that do. And they realize there are lots of bikes out there. Often times as I’m riding the Crosstown Greenway on Von Phister, Staples or Duck, cars will cede the right-of-way to bikes at intersections, even if they got there first. I’m not so sure I’d say the same of visitors though because on other streets I’m often flummoxed at the aggressive attitude of fast-moving drivers to the presence of me, a mere bike, on “their” street. 

If we can spend millions of dollars annually advertising Key West as a place to vacation, can’t we spend a few hundred thousand dollars educating those visitors that while they are here, they need to behave differently on our small, crowded streets, especially when driving? It is one thing to say, “slow down” and it is another thing entirely to actively, thoughtfully, and innovatively market the concept that we are someplace different and that people in vehicles need to slow down. THAT takes a marketing campaign and THAT takes money. The City has a nice Car-Free Key West website and Facebook page. But there’s no advertising budget to get the safety message out. THAT needs to change. I mean the City even spends $300,000 annually on promoting the Historic Seaport. Why can’t we spend some real dollars on a safety campaign. TDC, are you listening?

3 – Enforce Existing Speed Limits

The City Commission reduced the speed limit on City streets a couple of years ago to 20 miles per hour. This is important because a pedestrian hit by a vehicle traveling at 20 MPH has a 9 out of 10 chance to survive. At 30 MPH that’s only 5 out of 10. And at 40 MPH only 1 in 10. But the limit must be enforced to do any good.

I’m told by one prominent Key West bicycle advocate that “The City Commission unanimously passed a resolution asking for KWPD to increase speed limit enforcement, but crickets, nothing’s happened.”

The Police do an annual one-week safety campaign, funded by FDOT safety grant monies, to snag vehicles and bikes that don’t follow rules of the road. That’s not enough. We’ve heard time and again from others about the lack of enforcement. We realize our local police are stretched thin, but this should be a year-round priority. We reached out to the Department but didn’t get a response by press time.

4 – Engineer Our Streets for Slower Speeds

Lower speed limits and enforcing them is one thing. But study after study shows that people drive at the speed a road is designed for, not the speed limit. As our friends at Strong Towns are fond of saying “We can’t regulate our way to safety. We must design our streets to be safe.” 

It’s all about psychology. Narrower travel lanes, shorter block lengths, a tree canopy, and car parking and/or adjacent bike lanes all contribute to drivers traveling more slowly. Conversely, wide lanes, long block lengths, and open skies communicate to drivers that higher speeds are appropriate – no matter what the sign says the speed limit is. Think N. Roosevelt Boulevard, Flagler, S. Roosevelt, First, Bertha and Palm, and other streets where drivers tend to pick up speeds.

The Crosstown Greenway shows how you can redesign some of our wider, suburban residential streets, with paint, bollards, curb stops, and signs to help slow the cars down.

In a story a few weeks ago, Improving Lazy Way As a Great “Shared Street” Can Set the Stage for More of the Same Around Our Historic Downtown, October 14, 2022 we discussed how you can even apply more traffic calming techniques and slow the car speeds down to 5 mph on some select pedestrian priority streets.

Bottom line is you get the street you engineer for. If we want safer streets for bikes and pedestrians, we have to design them that way.

5 – Invest in New and Upgraded Bicycle Facilities

The Key West Bicycle and Pedestrian Masterplan, or Bike Plan, adopted by the City Commission in 2019, specifies new and upgraded bicycle facilities across Key West and Stock Island. We need to:

• Finish the Crosstown Greenway 
  Identified in the Bike Plan, the Crosstown Greenway is a safe East/West corridor for bicycles that spans the island from S. Roosevelt Boulevard to Reynold Street along Duck, Staples and Von Phister Avenues right through the middle of the City. It is a safe alternative to N. Roosevelt Boulevard to get across the island. After many community meetings and much help from some volunteers, a pilot project on part of the route was initiated in late 2020 using some green paint, bollards, curb stops and signs. A year later surveys revealed that people felt safer and traffic had been slowed. But little work has been done on the project since. In fact, much of the initial project has fallen into disrepair. The City needs to redouble its efforts and finish this very worthy signature project.
  
• Build Wickers Trail
  Part of the Crosstown Greenway is the Wickers Trail segment, also called out for in the Bike Plan, that cuts through the Wickers Sports Complex between Kennedy Drive and Glynn R. Archer, Jr. Drive. Construction had initially been slated to begin this summer but complications and cost overruns have delayed the project. The City’s Interim Engineering Director Gary Volenec hopes to have the design complete and funding in place to start construction next summer. Let’s make sure this happens!
  
• Build the Salt Ponds and Smathers Beach Bike Trails
  The Bike Plan calls for the Salt Ponds Trail to provide a safer and shorter commute for residents of Ocean Walk, Las Salinas and Seaside, where many of our workers live. It also calls for the Smathers Beach Trail to provide New Town residents with a short-cut to Smathers Beach without having to go all the way around S. Roosevelt Boulevard. Land is needed behind the airport for these facilities and is caught up in a potential land swap between the County and City. The City’s Parks and Recreation Board has formally asked that getting these two trails built be included in any negotiations. So far, nothing has happened, but we need to keep these two trails on our radar and get them built. 
  
• Build the South Street and United Street Bike Lanes
  In an effort to formally connect up the Crosstown Greenway into downtown, the City’s Transportation Coordinator is making sure new bike lanes are put in on rebuilding/repaving projects on South and United Streets. While the South Street portion is in the Bike Plan, the United Street leg is a new innovation. We need to support the completion of both.
  
• Install More Bike Boxes, Green Paint, and Intersection Treatments
  In general our bike lanes need to be better demarcated; we need bike boxes at intersections where we have bike lanes and signals; and we need to start helping bikes all the way through intersections with paint. All of this is called for in the Bike Plan.

There are a lot of other bicycle facilities called out in the Bike Plan, including major upgrades on White Street, Front Street on Stock Island, Whitehead and Simonton, Caroline, Northside Drive, Duck, First and Bertha and more. In our article 10 Things to Make It Safer to Bike from the 667 New Housing Units on Stock Island to Key West, June 17, 2022 we discussed:

• Putting in bike lanes on College Avenue (also in the Bike Plan), 
• Widening the five-foot sidewalks on the northbound side of the Triangle, and
• Putting an official crosswalk at Duck Avenue and S. Roosevelt

Amongst other things.

The point is that building these projects would make our streets safer. The City and County need to redouble their efforts and invest in safety by moving these many projects along more quickly.

6 –Connect All of Our Bicycle Facilities In One Seamless Network

Nothing is worse than being in a bike lane that suddenly ends, and you are thrown back into traffic. Or coming to an intersection on a bike lane and there’s seemingly no way to navigate through and no lane on the other side. This happens on Southard, Fleming, White, Eaton and Reynolds Streets. Most of our bike lanes are not connected up. Our “safer” Crosstown Greenway on Duck Avenue simply ends at the 35 MPH S. Roosevelt Boulevard with no safe way to cross to the other side to get to Stock Island. These are but a few examples of pieces of bike infrastructure that aren’t all connected up. To be really useful these bike facilities, including our multi use paths on N. and S. Roosevelt, Bertha and Atlantic, need to be one seamless connected network. And that includes through the intersections.

Despite lots of us biking, there’s a perception, at least by a large group of residents, that it isn’t safe, and that is backed up by local surveys and crash statistics. The fact that many visitors to the island ride their bikes on the sidewalks is another indication. National surveys related to biking say that about 50% of people in general are Interested in bicycling but are concerned and would be willing to bike if “high quality bicycle infrastructure was in place.” 

High quality bicycle infrastructure means a connected network of good bike lanes, protected, or separated bike lanes and bike trails. 

7 – For a Change, Let’s Choose People on Bikes Over Car Storage and Convenience

The Bike Plan calls for First and Bertha Streets, as they are a critical way to cross the island, to get separated bike lanes or a trail, as a continuation of the multi-use path on Bertha between Atlantic and S. Roosevelt. What happened when the County rebuilt the First and Bertha Street corridor? They decided to ditch the bike facilities and keep underutilized parking spaces instead.

The Bike Plan calls for separated bicycle lanes along S. Roosevelt Boulevard to separate the bicycle traffic from pedestrians along Smathers Beach. What happened when the choice was between four lanes of vehicle traffic or two on that stretch? After first voting against the bicycle lanes the City Commission tried to rectify that vote, but only if it didn’t cost any additional money or take any more time. Result. No bicycle lanes.

The same scenario played out when they rebuilt the Palm Avenue Bridge. Transportation experts tell us the best time to add bicycle facilities to streets are when they are rebuilt or repaved. In the last few years Duval Street, Simonton Street and Whitehead Street have all been rebuilt and repaved. All three streets had bicycle facilities called for in the Bike Plan. All three streets were put back together again, exactly as they were before. With car parking. I recall when a new bicycle lane was put in on Reynolds Street, on the westbound side one neighbor objected and the bike lane ends on their block and picks back up on the next. Time and time again, when faced with a choice between car storage/convenience and bicycles, the City and County have chosen against bicycles. Even when it goes against the Bike Plan.

The Mayor said this week “Not one street should be upgraded without adding the dedicated bicycle lane.” It may be too late for the streets named above, but let’s hold the Mayor and City to this promise for everything going forward.

8 – Do Something About N. Roosevelt Boulevard

According to a Keys Citizen story on Wednesday, “speed was a factor” in the crash that killed a bicyclist at a pedestrian crosswalk in the 3700 block of N. Roosevelt on Saturday, November 5.  

Everyone knows the most unsafe street in the City is North Roosevelt Boulevard. Why this homage to the car-dependent, suburban style mainland is allowed to exist in its present form on our little tropical island paradise is perplexing. It doesn’t look like nor function like the rest of our island. It looks like it was moved here from Del Boca Vista. With a speed limit of 35 MPH and cars often doing much more it is frightening to anyone on two feet or two wheels. What’s especially scary are all the curb cuts for the strip retail centers. Bikes can be on either side of the street on the sidewalks and cars forget to look both ways. No one says they like the five HAWK crosswalks but the alternative – “just let them walk a mile to the next traffic light” – isn’t a real option either. 

Says local bike rental company owner, Tom “The Bike Man” Theisen:

When I go out at 6am there is already a high volume of traffic on North Roosevelt Boulevard, by 7am it is totally jammed with speeding drivers zig zagging their way down to old town. Adding to the chaos are high speed electric vehicles on the bike path whose riders have little concern for pedestrians or cyclists. In my opinion North Roosevelt is now ruined as a safe place to enjoy a bike ride or take a walk, I only use it when I really have to. Lack of any enforcement on North Roosevelt is the problem, it’s as if the police are hiding out on South Roosevelt because it’s too dangerous to pull people over on North Roosevelt. And I have never seen the police enforcing the bike path laws, nothing, nada, never, zip. The 35 mile an hour speed limit should be reduced to twenty-five on NRB but are the police chief and mayor willing are to fight the FDOT to get it reduced or perhaps they like the higher speeds? When the boulevard was reopened the speed limit was 25 MPH for two months and everything went fine. I will continue to avoid NRB and its businesses for the foreseeable future, it’s not safe.”

Citizen Survey on North Roosevelt Boulevard Happening Now
Commissioner Mary Lou Hoover reminds me that as part of an ongoing effort to improve the N. Roosevelt Boulevard corridor there’s a survey out for citizens to participate in. If you want dedicated bike lanes and better/more crosswalks, wider sidewalks, slower speed limits and such, please PARTICIPATE in the survey. And Commissioner Hoover says, don’t just check the boxes, offer some ideas.

9 – Safety In Numbers: Get More People, Especially Visitors, Out of Their Cars

It may be counterintuitive but studies in Europe and North America show that as the number of people bicycling increases, so does bicycle safety. The increased visibility of bikes on the road makes people in cars more aware of their presence and as a result there are less crashes. Bikeshare advocates have noted that when cities start bikeshare programs, all of a sudden more people are biking on the streets and safety goes up. Check out some reading here, here, here, here, here and here for more.

So, if more bikes on our streets would help make it even safer to bike, we need to get more people, especially visitors, out of their cars and onto bikes. Inspired by a 2019 “Toward Car-Free Key West” study out from the University of South Florida on how to get vacationers to either not bring a car to the island at all or if they do drive here to at least park it and never use it again until the day they leave, we wrote: Ten Ways to Make Car-Free Key West a Reality for Visitors – Part 1: Marketing, April 8, 2022 and the follow-up article: Ten Ways to Make Car-Free Key West a Reality for Visitors – Part 2: Services, Infrastructure and Policies, April 15, 2022. These two articles, along with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – A Dozen Marketing Things KW Transit Can Do to Increase Ridership, April 9, 2021 offer a roadmap for getting more people to bike, walk and use public transit. 

The key here, like with safety marketing in number 2 is to ACTUALLY spend some money doing this. Again, and not to belabor the point, but if the TDC can spend tens of millions of dollars marketing Key West as a destination, can’t they use a portion of those marketing dollars to market a car-free experience? Getting more cars off the roads is one of the ways to make our streets safer.

10 – Speed and Red Light Cameras, No More Right Turn On Red

When I’ve talked to some bicycle advocates and people at City Hall, they tell me that speed and red-light cameras and no more right turn on red are things that would be cost effective safety measures to put in place.

But as local bicycle advocate Roger McVeigh tells me: “FDOT refuses to allow red light cameras and speed limit cameras, because Florida is the “Freedom State” where drivers can drive as unsafe as they wish without being told what to do.”

The City and County can do these things on the City and County streets, but Roger is right, we’d need the State to act to put these in on U.S. 1 and N. and S. Roosevelt, where they are really needed.

Key West Is Unique. To Make Our Streets Safer We Need Some Uniquely Key West Solutions

Key West is unique in so many different ways, including on our streets. We are one of the few places in the country where so many bikes, pedestrians and e-bikes/scooters share our compact, historic streets with vehicles. Add the fact that many of the folks out there are visitors from the mainland, unfamiliar with our distinctive ways, and that can make for an unsafe mix on our roads.

The tragedy of two bike crash deaths in one week reminds us that we all need to do better. City and County leaders need to redouble efforts to invest in engineering our streets to be safer and to build more bicycle facilities while spending some real money on safety education marketing, especially aimed at visitors. That and all of us on our streets need to take our One Human Family motto to heart and slow down and watch out for one another.

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You can find two years’ worth of KONK Life Streets for People column articles here.

Streets for People / City to Begin Work On Making It Easy to Bike to Lower Keys Shuttle and Enhancing Bus Stops from Marathon to Key West

Posted on November 4, 2022     Leave a Comment

By Chris Hamilton. This story was written and and published by KONK Life newspaper on November 4, 2022 and is reprinted here with permission. Follow us at Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown on Facebook and check out all our Streets for People stories here.

July 24, 2023 – As the City is now making steady progress on installing these facilities you can track that progress here: http://bit.ly/kwracks or on the project page: http://bit.ly/finalmi

Imagine you live on Big Pine, Summerland, Cudjoe, Sugarloaf or any of the Lower Keys between Marathon and Key West. You’d like to grab the Lower Keys Shuttle into town for work or an event. But you live a mile from the bus stop on U.S. 1. You aren’t up for the walk to the stop and research says most people will only walk a quarter mile or two to three blocks to reach transit. Perhaps you could ride your bike but there’s no place to park it when you get there. There’s no map and schedule information at the stop, no way to hail the bus when it comes by and no other amenities at the stop that indicate customers are valued. So, like most people, you just drive. Well, at its Tuesday meeting, City Commissioners adopted a series of construction and engineering contracts and an additional new funding grant with FDOT to help remedy this problem. 

Starting in a few weeks, construction will begin on a $1.4 million “Final Mile” project that will install bicycle racks and bike lockers, map and schedule information, hail or flagging devices, trash and recycle bins, lights, and even some bicycle fix-it-stations at 74 bus stops, including all of the Lower Keys Shuttle stops, and some of the most used Duval Loop and Key West Transit stops. 28 of the bus stops are in Key West and Stock Island and the other 46 are in the Lower Keys up to the end point of the Lower Keys Shuttle route in Marathon. Once started, the entire project should take six months to complete. Wow! All of this is part of an ambitious effort by the Mayor and other leaders, backed up in the Strategic Plan, to make using public transit easier, relieve congestion on our increasingly clogged Overseas Highway and help our beleaguered workforce deal with the high costs of owning and operating a car to get around. Mayor Teri Johnston said this investment in public transit is “progress!”

City Snags Federal and State Monies to Do Good Things

In a story last year, City to Make It Easier to Bike to Lower Keys Shuttle, August 20, 2021, we discussed how Alison Higgins, the Sustainability Coordinator wrote an application where the City received a $510,000 Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) grant via the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) for this Final Mile project. The City started the planning process and KCI Technologies completed the designs which were then put out to bid for a construction contract. The lowest “responsible and responsive” bid received was for $992,268 from Coral Construction Company. That’s $400,000 over what was available to construct the project.

Given the City’s distance from the mainland, another BID proffer wasn’t likely to bring in lower cost vendors. So, Transportation Coordinator, Ryan Stachurski wrote a supplemental grant for the difference of $437,268 to FDOT. Mr. Stachurski was quick to credit Kelly M. Crowe, P.E., Engineering Department, Carolyn Sheldon, Senior Grants Manager, and his predecessor Tim Staub for helping him get the grants, planning and construction contracts done. FDOT came through with the money and the City Commission just accepted FDOT’s additional funding Tuesday. At the same meeting they gave a contract for $992,268 to Coral Construction Company to commence work. As part of the agreement with FHWA and FDOT the City needed to hire a firm to do construction engineering and inspection (CEI) and that $198,142 contact was awarded to RS&H, Inc. on Tuesday also. The funds for this part of the work were allocated from the City’s Transportation Alternative Fund – where monies come from a small portion of parking revenues. Altogether the project totals $1,410,951. Of that, two thirds of the money is Federal/State and one third City. We commend City staff for leveraging local money for larger pots of State and Federal dollars and gaining a much more impactful project.

Ryan says of the project:

“This is great news both for people who live and for people who work in Key West. This is a big investment in facilities that help to provide a transportation alternative for commuters who are unable or choose not to pay for the high cost of car ownership.”

The First and Final Mile Problem

The grant and project are named, for what in transportation planning circles is called the First and Last or Final Mile problem. It is about the difficulty of getting to the bus stop in the first place, when one lives beyond the usual quarter mile walking shed. Conversely, it is also about traversing the last or final mile when the bus lets you off at your destination. From Marathon to Big Pine and all the islands in-between, including Stock island, many of our homes are well beyond a two or three block walk. Putting bicycle racks and lockers at all the stops, increases the potential radius each stop can serve.

Bike to and From the Bus: Space for 292 Bicycles in Racks and Lockers

As the Lower Keys Shuttle is popular, the two bicycle racks mounted to the front of the buses are often full early on in the run, leaving people who hop on outside of Marathon with no place to put their bike. Fights have been known to break out for the coveted spots. Installing bicycle racks and lockers at the stops will address this and allow more people to access the shuttle bus. 60 stops are getting 121 Inverted U bicycle racks that can accommodate 242 bikes. A dozen more stops are getting 24 bicycle lockers that can accommodate 56 bicycles. That’s 292 bike parking spaces in total or 292 potential additional customers per day.

Hail Lights or Flagging Devices at 43 Stops

Many stops along the Lower Keys Shuttle that have enough right-of-way have standard bus shelters. The newer ones, installed in the last couple of years, have solar powered lighting so they can be seen at night by the bus driver and customers. On parts of U.S. Route 1 it can be dark. With this in mind, 43 stops that are in the darkness are slated to receive bright LED “hail lights” or “flagging devices.” A customer presses a button on the pole and a solar powered light on the top, shines to alert the bus driver someone is waiting at the stop.

Map and Schedule Information At All Stops

The bus stop is an opportunity for passersby or people that live nearby to see map and schedule information at the stop and then they may be more included to use the service if they need it. We’ve written in the past (The Sorry State of Key West Bus Stops – We Just Don’t Care, April 2, 2021) about how Key West Transit has failed to provide easy to read map and schedule information about where the bus goes and when it is coming next on all its routes. This project will remedy this oversight.

Trash and Recycle Bins At All Remaining Stops

Many of the bus stops along the Lower Keys Shuttle route already have trash and recycle bins. Those that don’t will be slated to get them. 

Bicycle Fix-It Stations Near 17 Stops

Nothing is more frustrating to a bicyclist than a flat tire, loose gears or a basket that is falling off. Or just a tire that needs a little more air. While Key West and Stock Island have a bunch of wonderful bike shops, that isn’t necessarily so for the entire Lower Keys. So having a convenient place to fix one’s bicycle helps keep people going. A fix-it station includes all the tools necessary to perform basic bike repairs and maintenance, from adding more air to the tire, changing a flat to adjusting brakes, bells, and accessories. The tools are securely attached to the stand with stainless steel cables and tamper-proof fasteners. Project leaders explain that the 17 fix-it stations will go in public areas near bus stops but not directly on U.S. Route 1 for safety reasons.

City and County Must Double Down on this Good Project and Invest in Increasing Frequency on the Lower Keys Shuttle

More of us living in the Lower Keys and ever more visitors mean our mostly two-lane Overseas Highway is increasingly clogged. Getting more people to use the Lower Keys Shuttle helps all of us. The Final Mile project is a good investment in getting more people to use public transit. The bicycle racks broaden the reach of the service. The simple amenities of lights, a place to sit, trash and recycle bins and map and schedule information, go a long way towards telling existing and potential customers that they are valued, and increased ridership can be a result. City staff should be commended for foresight and follow through in making this happen. And especially in leveraging City dollars to get Federal and State monies.

But City and County leaders need to double down on this worthy project with an even bigger investment in increasing the frequency of the Lower Keys Shuttle buses. Currently there are only 10 trips inbound and 10 trips outbound daily, averaging between one and a half and two full hours between each trip. The City and County should make the commitment that next year that frequency should be hourly and a year after that every 30 minutes. That kind of reliable frequency coupled with the new bus stop amenities could actually move the needle on more people using the system. That will help fight congestion and more importantly save working people money. If people can depend upon the service maybe some households can get rid of one car and really save some cash. This will help make our islands healthier and happier.

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You can find all the KONK Life Streets for People column articles here.

Streets for People / Progress on Five Historic District Projects Means More Life, Locals, Prosperity, and Resiliency for Our Downtown 

Posted on October 21, 2022     1 Comment

By Chris Hamilton. This story was written and and published by KONK Life newspaper on October 21, 2022 and is reprinted here with permission. Follow us at Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown on Facebook and check out all our Streets for People stories here.

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the City’s Strategic Plan spurring a lot of stuff getting done this year on affordable housing and sea level rise. But what’s really caught our attention are a series of five long talked about but little advanced downtown projects that Planning Director Katie Halloran, with help from the Mayor, City Manager and Strategic Plan Coordinator, have quietly been pushing forward. Key West citizens have long discussed and tried to grapple with refurbishing Mallory Square, revitalizing Duval Street, renovating the historic Diesel Plant, building housing on the 3.2-acre Bahama Village site, and cleaning up Clinton Square for years, if not a decade or more. The recent history of each is strewn with false promises, hopeful beginnings, and dashed dreams. 

And yet now, because of the accountability built into the Strategic Plan, all five of these are finally progressing. These actions, all happening in quick and overlapping succession, with plenty of resident focused community input, are giving us a synergy to bolster our entire historic downtown commercial district. That’s win, win, win. More prosperity for our downtown Mom-and-Pop shops, a more locals focused destination for residents, and enhanced experiences for visitors too. Let’s take a look at where we are on all five of these, hear from some downtown locals and discuss why each of these projects are important for our future.

Residents Put Downtown Projects in Strategic Plan. Strategic Plan Accountability Spurs Action on Projects

In developing the City’s Strategic Plan last year about 4,000 residents were surveyed. Locals said they want the City to address affordable housing and sea level rise as their top two priorities. But they also wanted more pedestrian friendly streets and named Duval Street (#1), Mallory Square (#3), and the Diesel Plant (#7) as top of the list projects they want to get done. These three projects along with the 3.2 Acre Housing Development (The Lofts at Bahama Village) (#8) and Clinton Square (#13) are all top 15 projects in the Plan. Including it in the Strategic Plan is ensuring that there’s been accountability to get these projects started and moving forward after years and years of nothing but talk. 

The accountability starts with Mayor Teri Johnston’s earnestness in getting these projects in the Strategic Plan and her tenacity in getting a Plan done. It rests with City Manager Patti McLaughlin’s ability to lead an unwieldy City Hall bureaucracy to action. But it also includes the fact that Teri and Patti hired Elisa Levy to not only write the Plan but to help implement it over the long-term. For more on the specific mechanisms for accountability in the Strategic Plan read: “The Mayors’ Strategic Plan is Helping the City Bureaucracy Get Stuff Done,” September 16, 2022. 

Here’s what we know about the five projects:

1 – Clinton Park Square

At the August 16 City Commission meeting, project Albie Balliu presented a history and plans (video of her presentation and PowerPoint slides) for the triangle park in front of the Customs House next to Mallory Square. The obelisk monument at its center was erected in 1866 by the Navy to honor those fallen in the Civil War. The area has long been neglected and had off and on parking and drive through issues as no one seems to know if it is okay to drive onto or not. Park or not. It’s even become a waiting area for Uber pickups. There’s no seating, little lighting, you can barely see the monument through the foliage and well it really isn’t much of park.  That’s all going to change very soon as the City will create an historic park area with bench seating for sitting and gathering, poinciana trees for shade, lighting, historic markers, wayfinding and more. 

The project has received all of its approvals from the Tree, Parks and Recreation and HARC commissions, engineering drawings are almost complete, as are bids for construction. Building is expected to get underway before the end of 2022.

2 – Mallory Square

Mallory has long been the center of Key West maritime history. From anti-piracy operations in the 1820’s to hub for the wrecking industry soon after and then a long period as a place for storage of goods being transferred via ships at the port. In 1961, the City and the Old Island Restoration Foundation (OIRF) restored and repurposed the little used area as a center for community gatherings. The spot became famous in the 1970’s for the now iconic Sunset Celebration. The current windswept brick pavers and drab landscaping were put in during the late 1980’s. For the last decade plus people have talked about improving the area because it looks run down and neglected and is only really used a few hours every day. At the Mayor’s direction, last year the Planning Department held public workshops with tenants and residents and conducted a survey to get input on how to improve the Square and surrounding area. 

What they heard and shared via a compact Vision Plan was: 

• Create a program/vision to keep people in the square throughout the day, 
• Build connectivity to surround properties, 
• Improve lighting and safety, and
• Provide seating, shade, landscaping, and signage.

With this in mind, the City hired the world renown Boston based planning and urban design firm Sasaki – “Better design, together” – in March to develop a Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square Master Plan for the entire Mallory Square district including Meson De Pepe, Historic Tours of America, the Waterfront Playhouse, the Cultural Preservation Society and the Key West Art Center. Here’s how the City’s Planning Director, Katie Halloran describes the progress: 

“The Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square Master Plan is in full swing, and Sasaki is the City’s consultant leading the project, including the public engagement work. The first online survey has just closed but the website will be live throughout the project for the public to check on progress and provide feedback https://mallorysquare.engage.sasaki.com/. Now, Phase 1 public input will guide the consultants as they develop two design concepts for the public to review. On December 9 Sasaki and City staff will be at the Christmas Bazaar at the Customs House and at Sunset Celebration on December 10, to gather input on conceptual master plan features. The second survey (not yet released) will provide a virtual opportunity for the public to provide feedback on the two conceptual master plan concepts.”

The best summary of this process and most thoughtful recommendations on what we’d agree that we’d like to see as a result is Linda Grist Cunningham’s excellent article: “Key West’s Mallory Square | What Happens When History, Nostalgia and Cash Collide?” September, 24, 2022, on her Key West Island News blog. Give it a read.

3 – Keys Diesel Plant

The former Keys Energy Diesel Plant, a complex of five decaying buildings in Bahama Village near the entrance to the Truman Waterfront was built in the 1880’s. Keys Energy owned it and ceased operations in the 1970’s but did nothing with the property, letting the buildings deteriorate. They gave it to the City for free in 2016. In February 2019, after an RFP process, the Key West Art and Historical Society (KWAHS) won a bid from the City to stabilize and redevelop the buildings into a multi-use cultural facility. That fell through during COVID as KWAHS was dealing with just keeping their other properties afloat. 

Last summer (2021) the Rams Head group, who manage the Key West Theatre, Coffee Butler Amphitheater and Rams Head Southernmost restaurant, provided an unsolicited proposal to redevelop the property. They proposed a microbrewery, multi-use flex space, walking museum, outdoor courtyard & playground, culinary & brewing programs, and a coffee shop. Their presentation was so well received that Commissioners Lopez and Weekley voted to accept it. But the rest of the Commission said a new RFP should be put out so there would be some competition. However, there were no responses to that RFP that was broadcast in May and due in July. That’s how we got to today.

Gary Volenec, City Engineer/Interim Director who heads this project says it will be the spring before a new RFP hits the street soliciting a potential developer. But in the meantime, the City will endeavor to demolish buildings 3B and 5 and begin some preliminary stabilization as soon as possible in advance of, and to help facilitate, construction of The Lofts at Bahama Village (the 3.2-acre site). The 3.2-acre site is immediately adjacent to the Diesel Plant property. And in redoing the RFP the City hopes to find ways to garner more interest from potential developers. Doing some of this initial work, should help.

4 – The Lofts at Bahama Village

The 3.2 acres of City-owned land in Bahama Village has been talked about since the 1980’s when the U.S. Government gave it and the land that is the Truman Waterfront Park to the City. It’s complicated and sad history that after many fits and starts is finally heading in the right direction. Late last year the non-profit A.H. Monroe won an RFP process to develop a much-needed affordable housing project on the site. On January 18 of this year Key West citizens agreed to lease the land to A.H. Monroe for 99 years, making them eligible for various grants to help offset project costs. 

According to the Planning Director “The project has been to the Development Review Committee and the Tree Commission and will be on the Planning Board agenda next on its way through the City of Key West review and approval process.” When I contacted A.H. Monroe’s Executive Director Scott Pridgen this week he said:

“Currently The Lofts are going through the Planning Department process and should be ready for permitting to start construction by April 2023 and opening by October 2024. The project will give Bahama Village residents more housing opportunities downtown.”

Everyone agrees we need more affordable housing for workers. Putting 126 units and 300+ residents smack dab in the middle of downtown is even better. More full-time people living downtown helps create a more local focused vibe that’s good for our historic district. And because it is downtown the new residents will be able to walk, bike and take transit to get around. *

Says Paul J. Menta of Key West First Legal Rum Distillery and head of the Shop Mom and Pop Key West group: 

“Keeping locals living locally in Key West has many advantages such as it keeps the local economy going as they buy at Mom-and-Pop type places, they have options to bike or bus to work and they add to the ambiance of Key West by having locals walking around with tourists. Sounds funny but when you travel you want to shop and eat where the locals are!” 

Exactly!!!

*We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that although we’re fans of more downtown housing for local workers, we’re flummoxed by the City allowing a mainland building style and insisting on an overabundance of surface car parking at the expense of landscaping and amenities for the new residents. Especially when there is so much empty parking on adjacent properties. We hope the City fixes this and recommend the article: “Too Much Surface Parking at the Lofts Is a Wasteful Use of Valuable Downtown Land,” February 3, 2022. 

5 – Duval Street

Mayor Johnston ran on a platform of revitalizing Duval Street in 2018. She initiated the Mall on Duval pilot project in 2019 and the discussion about the pros and cons of that led to the release of a Duval Street Revitalization Plan RFQ in late 2019. At the time Mayor Johnston said:

“We all love our main street and want to see it prosper and bring our community together. Mall on Duval brought locals downtown who haven’t been there in years, promoting a conversation about what improvements need to be made, including widening sidewalks – they range from 8 to 18 feet – and adding planters and benches, shade, and water fountains.”

 After a long selection process a vendor was selected and a contract signed in November of 2020. And then the selected vendor ran into some trouble with their principles quitting. Rather than simply select another firm from the qualified list the Planning Department chose to take additional time to put out a whole new RFP because in the interim they’d learned that if the RFP and subsequent contract followed some State procurement procedures the City would be eligible for Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) funding for the project. And low and behold, staff secured a $500,000 DEO grant to pay for the effort. So, putting off hiring a vendor was worth the wait. Of the new revised RFP, the Planning Director said in late 2021:

“The scope of work for the Duval RFQ includes mobility planning, civil engineering, historic preservation, landscape architecture, and public facilitation. One major goal of the plan is to revitalize the corridor in a way that promises resilience to climate related risks, particularly to sea level rise. This may also include working with local businesses to assist with economic resilience. This revised RFQ ensures we are meeting our DEO grant requirements, and is more directly tied to resilience, in addition to revitalization – making the street even nicer to look at and more comfortable for pedestrians.”

The new Duval Street Economic Corridor Resiliency and Revitalization Plan was broadcast this past March, proposals were due in June and a Duval Steering Committee after review, ranked the firms on October 4, 2022. Katie Halloran says, “The next step will be for the City Commission to review the finalists and approve the City’s partner firm before the end of the year. Once the finalist has been chosen the City works to negotiate the contract with the firm and the project begins.”

I asked local Truman Annex resident and community volunteer Ray Warren what his thoughts were on the Duval Street project:

“Duval Street desperately needs shade, seating, and green space. Other than the somewhat neglected, and highly commercialized, pocket park at the far end, there are no such spaces along the entire length of the street. Even Manhattan has parks, and in many places, park benches.

More locals would venture downtown, and support downtown, if it were seen as a place to gather, people watch, meet friends, or socialize, instead of merely being a utilitarian way to go indoors and be cut off from the street.

I know that property along Duval is extremely expensive. But, in addition to little parklets that might be obtained by reducing on street parking, the City should actively be on the lookout for lots that might be attainable for a fair price. Ideally not by condemnation, but by simple negotiation. 

Yes, many of the buildings are historic and protected. But not all of them really contribute to the historic nature of downtown. Imagine something like Duval Square, but instead of being a purely private commercial space, imagine it was a shady oasis open to the main street. 

One burned out business has remained in ruins for basically 5 years or so. An opportunity like that should be grabbed for green space. I don’t think it’s going to be built back and its original form.”

The upcoming community process on Duval Street will give voice to Mr. Warren’s thoughtful ideas and provide all residents and the business community an opportunity to share ideas and contribute.

Past articles on this project include:

• Duval Street Revitalization Moves Forward, June 10, 2020
• Duval Street Revitalization Help Sought Via RFQ, December 10, 2020
• Duval Street Revitalization Project Brings Hope to Downtown, December 28, 2020
• The Week Donkey, Whataboutism, Bathwater and Duval Street’s Future, February 19, 2021
• Eight Things We Can Do to Pedestrianize Duval and Still Allow Cars, March 6, 2021
• With Duval Street Revitalization Plan Way Behind Schedule, Here’s 3 Quick Wins for Pedestrianizing Duval Street Now, July 16, 2021
• Duval Street Revitalization Back on Track, October 1, 2021

Why Proactive Planning Is Needed

We mentioned the survey and Strategic Plan above because every time we start to talk about these projects, the leave-it-aloners, naysayers, whatabouters and stop-trying-to-change-Key-Westers whine that nothing needs to be done. On the contrary, time and time again, the majority of residents have said otherwise. Change happens whether you plan for it or not. Proactive planning means the people, not just moneyed land interests and big corporations get a say in that future. So, we encourage everyone to keep participating in these planning processes.

Why the Convergence of These 5 Projects Is Good for Downtown

Clinton Square Park starts construction this year. The planning process for the Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square Master Plan is well underway and will be complete in May of 2023. Then building out that vision will begin to take place. Interim work on demolishing structures that can’t be used and shoring up structures that will be used for future redevelopment of the Diesel Plant will start in the coming months and then a solicitation for a developer will take place next spring. The Lofts at Bahama Village are expected to start construction in the spring of 2023 and be open for residents 18 months later. After a decade+ of talk, THAT’S a lot of progress that City Hall should be proud of because it will strengthen our downtown.

Here’s what our Mayor, Teri Johnston said a while back about these projects:

“I’m anxious to get the Duval Street revitalization project moving and want it to address sea level rise. Our City Planning Director Katie Halloran has such an incredible long-term vision for our community including the connectivity between Mallory Square, Clinton Square and our three unique environments of Duval Street, Petronia Street, and our Diesel Plant. Our plans will address the needs of generations to come.” 

I asked downtown small business advocate Paul J. Menta what all these projects mean for downtown. Here’s his response:

What does it mean and why is this important for downtown/the City that all of these projects are finally starting to gel? 

“It means we have a Mayor and commission who are working with departments to see all these things through. It’s good to see all on the same page preserving history but also making use of areas for our visitors and locals. It’s adjusting to the future. 

We have areas like Duval Street and downtown that could be better used for all. Keeping it more green and more accessible is better for visitors and keeps a look and feel of downtown. I wish they would bring the electric trolly back! Looking at our history, Duval has changed serval times in the last 150 years, this is one of those times. Clinton square needs to be cleaned up so people can use it and see the history. The future is to keep our historic island look and if HARC’s rules are followed on improvements, that’s what it will be…improvement.”

Anything you are particularly excited about?

“I am excited to see more space available for small mom and pop future entrepreneurs. 1 or 2 people being able to start up a small business in order to be able to afford to live here is really important. Example, using Mallory during the day for “lunch at Mallory Square” would enable people to use the space for lunch (not getting in the way of sunset celebration ever!) and this could be a new business area for locals to have carts and all have different foods and some gifts to sell. You could do this 10 am – 2 pm with limited carts and local business vendors and they could still work and evening job if desired to have the income needed to afford to live here.

We need to make places as well for future businesspeople to offer services we send out to the mainland or buy online in city spaces that people can do a startup business with and make money. The future is our residents to work and make an income to be able to live here, no answer on housing being so expensive, but making enough money to afford it doesn’t hurt!”

These five projects are important for our future. They’ll make downtown nicer to look at, more comfortable for people and resilient in the face of climate change. As Paul’s pointed out it is an opportunity to bring more locals downtown, emphasize our history and help our local Mom-and-Pop businesses. But we’ll let the Mayor have the final word as she sums it up best:

“We are enhancing our public spaces for our residents and guests alike so that we can continue to be a quality community and a world class destination.”

Amen.

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You can find two years’ worth of KONK Life Streets for People column articles here.

Streets for People / Improving Lazy Way As a Great “Shared Street” Can Set the Stage for More of the Same Around Our Historic Downtown

Posted on October 14, 2022     Leave a Comment

By Chris Hamilton. This story was written and and published by KONK Life newspaper on October 14, 2022 and is reprinted here with permission. Follow us at Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown on Facebook and check out all our Streets for People stories here.

On Tuesday night I walked in one minute late for a 5:30 public workshop about improving Lazy Way expecting to find a few people outnumbered by City staff and instead couldn’t find a chair in a standing room only meeting that had maybe 60+ people crammed around tables of appetizers and water (I was really hoping for beer) and sitting in plastic chairs surrounding a makeshift rostrum set atop a pool table on the second floor of Schooner Wharf. Despite the absence of beer, this was not your average City Hall meeting venue.

 A who’s who of top-level City staff attended including the City Manager and Police Chief, along with Commissioner Jimmy Weekley, and representatives of most of the Key West Historic Seaport businesses and a few nearby residents too. Why were all these people here to talk about Lazy Way – that iconic little one-way street that runs between William and Elizabeth Streets and parallel to the Harbor Walk? Well, because someone had made the daring suggestion, although no one will admit it anymore, that Lazy Way might be a good candidate to be a car-free or mostly car-free street. And we know if there’s one thing in Key West that will draw an audience, it’s talk of change. Especially if it involves our God-given right to drive our cars anywhere, we want. 

But any notion that Lazy Way would become car-free was quickly put to bed by Commissioner Weekley, City Manager Patti McLaughlin, Transportation Coordinator Ryan Stachurski and Strategic Plan consultant Elisa Levy. Each echoed the other saying Lazy Way is a “shared street” that includes vehicles today and that was NOT going to change in the future. Rather, the meeting was about hearing ideas on how to make Lazy Way safer, especially for pedestrians, function better and maybe even more beautiful, not about banning cars. This seemed to take the air out of most of the audience, who came prepared with arguments against any sort of car-free nonsense – although that didn’t stop them from taking up lots of time saying so anyway. 

Mr. Stachurski gave a very informative presentation on what exactly shared streets are and provided a bunch of examples on what it takes to make a good, shared street. Ms. Levy then commanded the people in the room, who really just wanted to talk about how much they needed vehicle access along Lazy Way, and actually wrangled a least a dozen good ideas from a wide variety of participants on how to make this little street even better. The audience seemed to nod their head in agreement in liking many of them. The Fire Department representative and Police Chief said they saw no problems with the ideas. And lo and behold, it seemed as if mostly everyone was on the same page and was talking about how we make Lazy Way more pedestrian friendly, while allowing cars. This is important because getting it right here can set the stage for making more pedestrian friendly shared streets or shared street blocks or segments throughout our historic downtown. We’ll spend a little time below discussing what shared streets are, some of the ideas that came out of this workshop and tell you about next steps.

What’s a Shared Street?

A shared street is a street that is shared by pedestrians, bicyclists, and cars as equals. Although cars are allowed, they are restricted to walking speeds, say 5 mph, with the onus of responsibility for safety on the car driver. Calming features let vehicles know they are guests. People on bicycles cede the right of way to people that are walking. Instead of dividing a street with barriers like curbs, sidewalks, and bike lanes – where each user has their own space, everyone uses the street simultaneously and cars are forced to drive slowly. 

There are examples of this all over the world, especially in Europe. One of the best examples many of us know about is Commercial Street in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Mr. Stachurski suggested in his presentation that some of the calming features or furniture could include art, bike racks, benches, planters, tables, and chairs and treating the road with pavers or bricks or even painting it the with fun colors or art. All these things signify to cars that they are someplace different and although welcome that they are the guest and need to cede the right of way.

Why a Shared Street Rather Than a Car-Free Street Is Okay

Many citizens have said they want some car-free streets around downtown. A survey of residents for the City’s Strategic Plan backs this up. But we’ve been talking about car-free streets in Key West for decades and nothing gets done because of the all or nothing approach. Let’s think about how we accommodate:

• Access for delivery vehicles
• Access for vehicles for seniors, people with mobility or ADA issues that need to be dropped off at the door
• Taxis, Ubers and Lyfts
• Hotels, inns, and business with access off the street
• Police, fire, and emergency vehicles

The majority of those who attended the meeting were from the business community and most of them said their customers needed vehicle access to the street for all of the reasons above. And they were adamant that they’d vigorously oppose any regular closing of the street. A shared street allows vehicles for these uses. You might say these are “authorized vehicles.” But because on a shared street the speed limit is 5 mph and because pedestrians and bicycles are in the middle of the street, it discourages through traffic that doesn’t have a purpose to be there and it helps pedestrianize the street.

On the other hand, Sue Huffaker, a resident who lives nearby told me after the meeting:

“My main theme is: NO CARS!  It’s such a narrow little lane, no room for sidewalks, with a pleasing, restful, old-fashioned atmosphere to it.  Make it even more beautiful and playful and fun—which means, no vehicles! I love the idea of prettying it up with strings of lights, planters, artworks, etc.  and even benches. “ 

So, shared streets are a great compromise between these positions.

More about shared streets from the Urban Street Design Guide by the National Association of City Transportation Officials and from the Global Designing Cities Initiative. 

And here’s an article we did on the subject a while ago: Eight Things We Can Do to Pedestrianize Duval and Still Allow Cars; March 5, 2021.

Some Ideas from the Lazy Way Workshop

Lazy Way is already a good shared street. Not a lot of vehicles use it and those that do seem to sense they are guests and need to be extra cautious. But the question put to the audience of mostly adjacent business owners is can we make it better and safer. Ideas included:

• Wayfinding signage showing how to get to the Harbor Walk
• “Authorized Vehicles Only” signs
• Better signage/paint in street indicating it is a one-way street
• Signs saying slow down or indicating the speed limit is 3 mph
• More and better organized bicycle and scooter parking
• Pavers or imprinted asphalt that looks like brick rather than black road
• String lights over the street as it is dark at night
• Painting the street in a design or with art
• More benches, tables, and chairs

All of these are good ideas that would make Lazy Way safer, function better and more beautiful. Win, win, win.

Next Steps On Lazy Way

At the meeting Elisa asked participants to take their sticky dots and put them next to the ideas they really liked. Everyone got up to 3 dots. Blue dots in the pictures are from people representing businesses and all the other colors are residents. It looks like signage, string lights, organized bike/scooter parking and painting the street were the most favored ideas. City staff is going to take these and follow-up with the Director of Engineering, Ryan, Patti, likely Police and Fire and possibly Commissioner Weekley to verify the initiatives to put forward for Lazy Way. They’ll create a timeline for an action plan to get these things accomplished in the coming months.

Here’s what Ryan Stachurski the City’s Multi-Modal Transportation Coordinator said after the meeting:

“A lot of people are very passionate about Lazy Way and really want the best for their community! Many tenants voiced their concerns about regular street closings, but did like some ideas such as improved signage, improved bike and scooter parking, and cafe / string lights to brighten the area at nighttime. I hope we can deploy some of these shared-street ideas and bring them to other areas of Key West as well.”

Key West Residents Want More Pedestrian Friendly Streets

In the 2021 survey of Key West residents that led the City’s Strategic Plan, “traffic and pedestrian friendliness” ranked 16 out of 18 City services. It was the third most complained about topic after housing and road repair and in 3 focus groups of teachers, parents, and workers, the #1 request was more pedestrian friendly streets. Addressing Lazy Way is just the first step in giving the residents what they want.

Getting Lazy Way Right Can Lead to More Shared Streets Around Downtown

Pedestrian and bicycle friendly streets bring more customers to our small Mom and Pop shops. They are better for our environment and our health. They are more equitable in using our community’s resource – the street itself – for everyone, not just private car owners’ convenience. Residents want more of them. They are one of the reasons tourists come to love the places they visit because they can get car-dependent places on the mainland. Shared streets or blocks may be the best way to compromise between the all or nothing approach of car-free streets. By getting Lazy Way right, by making it more pedestrian friendly, safer, functional and beautiful we can set an example for other places downtown, like parts of Petronia Street, Duval Street and perhaps Fleming or Southard to name a few. 

What the meeting on Tuesday night at Schooner Wharf showed us is that we here in Key West CAN come together and reasonably agree to move forward on a project if we agree to listen, learn, and not talk past each other. Here’s looking to a more walkable and bikeable downtown – that would benefit all of us.

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You can find two years’ worth of KONK Life Streets for People column articles here.