JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville is reportedly one of the most dangerous cities to walk in, so how might the mayor's budget proposal help?
"There’s no reason that Jacksonville should be in the top ten cities for pedestrian fatalities every year," she said in her budget proposal.
Jacksonville ranks sixth in pedestrian fatality rates nationwide, according to a report by Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition published last year. The report ranks Florida second for the most deadly state for pedestrians.
Mayor Donna Deegan's record-breaking $1.7 billion budget proposal focuses on infrastructure and she says millions more than last year is allotted for road projects and sidewalk improvements.
Deegan is proposing $13.6 million to go toward sidewalk and crosswalk improvement projects, which she says is nearly 80 percent more funding than last ye
ar. She's also proposing a more than $20 million mowing budget, a 95 percent budget jump, to increase trimming, edging and litter pick up. She's proposing nearly $27 million for roadway projects.
Peter Borenstein, chair of Jacksonville's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, says elements of the 2020 Five Points traffic redesign can be used elsewhere in the city.
That redesign extended the sidewalk curbs, which Borenstein says narrows the turning radiuses for cars, forcing them to slow down. The intersection also has blinking lights over a crosswalk sign and a raised crosswalk.
"Those extended curbs bring the crosswalk together," Borenstein said. "So a pedestrian spends a shorter amount of time in the flow of traffic and those curbs make the turn radius tight. A tighter turn radius requires cars to slow down and it requires them to pay attention to what they're doing."