Your City Council Voted to Four Lane Culver Drive:
At this past Thursday’s City Council meeting, your Palm Bay City Council voted (4-1) to four-lane Culver Drive. The Council was to vote on a revised developer’s agreement for the Office/Trade Complex containing the original common sense improvements to Culver Drive approved by them on November 2, 2006. In a classic dirty politics bait and switch operation, the council took the developer’s agreement in the meeting legislative package, re-wrote the agreement on the fly with the developer’s lawyer to allow the four-laning of the road, passed the resolution without any public input or discussion, and then scurried out of the chambers. Watch the meeting yourself on TV, and see what happened. You will be amazed! The public safety aspects of four laning a frontage road with a 90 degree “dead man’s” curve or the added difficulty of un-signalized left turns into and out of the Palm Bay Senior Center across a four lane highway were never even discussed or considered. In all of this it is important to remember that the current morning traffic backup on Culver Drive is solely caused by a snarled, backed up Palm Bay Road.
The only purpose for four laning of Culver Drive is to route massive amounts of traffic south from the Palm Bay Road I-95 exit via Emerson Drive. Nobody builds a four lane road to nowhere! No more traffic can fit onto Malabar Road with the traffic backing up onto the freeway during rush hour. It has to go somewhere, and your neighborhood has been designated to get it. There are new plans for redesigning Palm Bay Road to accommodate the Hammock Landing Development which show two side by side massive turn lanes into Culver which extend all the way back to the Interstate exit. These proposed plans will be posted on the association website at www.lockmar.org. Look at these, and judge for yourself what is going on. The possible connection to the proposed Diagonal Road means the possibility of even more traffic. Emerson Drive through Lockmar Estates has just been designated a major artery for the City of Palm Bay. Public officials will say otherwise, but again … connect the dots.
At this point, only a massive political outcry by Lockmar residents could change what is going on. Accordingly you are strongly urged to vote in the City Elections for Seat 4 and Seat 5 of the City Council this Tuesday, November 6th. A massive voter turnout has the chance of reversing a bleak fate. The polls open at 7AM and close at 7PM. Precincts 83 and 213 vote at the Palm Bay Senior Center.
THE CITY COUNCIL CERTAINLY VOTED—NOW YOU SHOULD!
In addition, contact the City Council to Express Your Displeasure:
Phone in your opinion: 952-3414; Fax in your opinion: 953-8971
November 3, 2007
Palm Bay Road at I-95 and Culver Drive Redesign Plans will not post to the website. Please click here to send an email and we will send you a soft copy.
At the link above you will find the proposed plans for the re-design of Palm Bay Road at the I-95 Intersection and at Culver Drive. These plans are supposed to be to accommodate the new Hammock Landing development north of Palm Bay Road. But if you look at the plans (specifically Figures 2 and 4), you will see two massive side by side turn lanes which extend back to the Interstate Exit which feed directly into Culver Drive.
The City of Palm Bay has what are called concurrency issues which might impede the progress of rapid growth and development in the city’s south end. The I-95 exit at Malabar Road is jammed at rush hour. The traffic backs all the way into the freeway. The City has to solve this problem in some way and move the vehicles via an alternate route or state growth management laws kick in, and development must stop. So looking at these plans you can see that the City of Palm Bay’s immediate concurrency problems are solved with the massive dual turn lanes, and the ability to route large amounts of traffic south via Culver Drive and Emerson. This seems to handily explain why the City Council voted this past Thursday to four lane Culver Drive without any public discussion or input. Emerson Drive through Lockmar Estates has been chosen as the next major traffic artery for the City of Palm Bay. City officials may tell you that this is not the case, but look at the plans, and make up your mind for yourself. Nobody builds a four lane road to nowhere!
Also note in these plans the Diagonal Road’s connection to Palm Bay Road at Culver Drive. In addition, note the weaving lane on the westbound acceleration path from the I-95 exit. The previously bought and paid for design for Palm Bay Road only had an acceleration lane as is there now in the current road. The problem with weaving lanes is that they cause traffic conflicts and road design manuals discourage their use on heavily used interchanges.
This notice brought to you by the Lockmar Estates Homeowners Association, www.lockmar.org, 951-7152