It is amazing to know how the steering committee has been organizing the Florida Transportation Plan (FTP).
Since 2015, when FTP was created the steering committee is considering the trends dynamics in Florida, and it has been updating it every 5 years. This deep study maintains local, regional, state, and federal agencies aligned in benefit of the transportation improvement.
The last FTP update has accomplished the engagement of 6,600 participants and it has got 27,000 interactions from the social media platforms.
Probably the main insight to sustain the 2045’s plan came from the answer of what are the most important issues for customers, who brought safety, equity and user experience as a top priority, according to the Florida Transportation Plan Vision Element report, in What We Heard.
In addition, the balance of the seven goals (you can find the entire report at the bottom of this article) helps to create a solid path to achieve safe and reliable roads for the end-users.
I will give a humble thought regarding the two of the seven, Safety and Security for Residents, Visitor, and Business and Transportation Solutions that Strengthen Florida’s Economy.
About the first one, we keep seeing the effort to deploy even better technologies due to the challenges that are still out there, considering the 700 new residents per day in Florida predicted until 2045, for example. The idea of having a new St. Petersburg every year, gives us a notion of urgency to keep pushing the FTP’s action in place.
Taking a look at another trend, the number of 614,632 jobs in the ratio of 40 minutes-drive, in comparison with the number of 18,249 in the ratio of 40 minutes of a transit trip, explains how far we are to balance this reality. This discrepancy does not surprise us because the matrix of the traffic plan was created based on cars, not pedestrians.
Also, considering Floridians are aging, we will witness the swift from cars to the public transportation systems, meaning the increase in the number of pedestrians on the streets.
Even though I am writing this article during the Covid-19 pandemic, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis intents to open all activities in the State and he was considering a meeting with the POTUS to talk more about the idea of reopening the country for tourists.
In other words, sooner or later, Florida will be back on track, and it will continue attracting more and more visitors every year.
Tourists represent more money to hotels, attractions, restaurants, and rent a car, but also, they could increase the probability of having more drivers on the road with no clue about how cars should be driven in the US. They increase the risks for themselves and for residents to be involved in accidents and get hurt.
Before the country shut down, I was driving at International Drive, in Orlando and I saw a vehicle crossing the Rapid Rectangle Flash Beacon (RRFB) flashing without stopping. I realized the driver had no idea the car should stop and yield to pedestrians, and when I tried to let him know about it, the answer was “Sorry my English is not that good.”
Despite the fact that tourists are very good to the economy, and just to be clear that I am not against them, the risks increase a bit when they are driving on the streets.
Maybe it would be a good idea to get rental cars companies involved as a powerful contribution to achieve the goal of reducing the fatalities statistics. At the moment tourists arrive at the rental car company, the employees could communicate how important is their awareness to the traffic safety.
Even though tourists should be one of the targets of the pedestrian safety campaign, Americans were the ones who were most responsible for hitting pedestrians in 2019, according to MetroPlan Orlando, based on the fact that 96% of drivers who hit pedestrians in Florida live here.
I recall another case I witnessed also at International Drive when a young lady who was distracted with her cellphone, simply ignored the crosswalk. Luckily, there was no pedestrian crossing the street at that moment.
In both cases, crosswalk should be the safest place to pedestrians when they cross the street; however, 14% of pedestrian fatalities in Florida occur in marked crosswalks, according to Center for Urban Transportation, University of South Florida.
FTA is developing a new solution that will help the safety of pedestrians and achieve zero fatalities. Based on innovative technology, we intend to be part of the solution in cities that are facing this type of problem.
Regarding the second goal, Transportation Solutions that Strengthen Florida’s Economy, it is also important to the state and quite strategic the way that should be held more than 720 million tons, according to the 2018 report.
The Interstate 95 is a crucial corridor for goods and products be flown out of Florida to other states, and to other countries through ports. This is one of the reasons why FTA is working on technologies capable of reducing damages on the roads and the risks of overload vehicles. We are also focused on increasing the efficiency of the weigh stations through the high-speed weigh in motion, in order to scale vehicles in free flow up to 80mph. In this way, we could help keep the logistics running with no waiting time.
Even though weigh-based toll is not regulated in the US yet, FTA is able to provide it. The main benefit is to prevent damages on the road by stopping overweight vehicles and increasing the fairness to the logistics sector by replacing the current method, number of axles, considering doing it by weigh.
We are working every day to help FTP achieve those goals by using the next generation of technologies.
Author: Degoncir Goncalves
Source:
http://floridatransportationplan.com/pdf/REPORT_FDOT_Vision2020_final_Apr20_spreads.pdf
https://www.iyield4peds.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/07.02.20BFFBFF-Fact-SheetAll-Counties.pdf