ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. — Lenny Stamos, the owner of Lenny’s Surf Shop, has been in St. Pete Beach for a long time.
But you don’t have to be there long to figure out the city’s main artery, Gulf Boulevard, needs attention.
“Everybody that’s conducting business, everybody that’s on vacation, everybody that’s traveling to go to a restaurant with their family or whatever — they all have to go on Gulf Boulevard along with all our emergency vehicles,” Stamos said.
It’s that daily mix of drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists that has led to hundreds of accidents over the past few years, some of them deadly.
Currently, there are narrow bike lanes and some pedestrian crosswalks along the boulevard, but Stamos has other, bigger ideas.
“Let’s make the changes that we can make,” he said.
He would like to see a pedestrian path between the beach and hotels, a service lane on Gulf Boulevard, and a larger education campaign about how to stay safe here.
“We definitely have to have an education process for our, you know, for our visitors and our local residents also,” Stamos said.
Thursday night, officials didn’t unveil those exact solutions but did offer others as part of a study being conducted by Forward Pinellas and its partners.
Officials recommended a short term list of improvements like more crosswalks, better lighting, and brighter pavement markings. In the long term, they recommended a redesign of Gulf Boulevard.
Where the boulevard is widest, one option would be a landscaping buffer that would separate vehicle traffic from pedestrians and cyclists, who would have designated paths. Where the road is narrower, a safer bike lane, painted green, could potentially be installed.
“Which provides a very visual reminder for drivers to give the bicyclists breathing room,” explained Nousheen Rahman, a principal planner with Forward Pinellas.
Rahman said securing funding and then installing the fixes will take one to two years for the short-term solutions and even longer for the longer-term options. However, she believes they will make a difference once they’re done.
City residents like Sandy Spalitto aren’t so sure as resorts in St. Pete Beach expand and the traffic on Gulf Boulevard increases.
The study will be finalized in the next few months. Then, the recommendations will be presented to St. Pete Beach city commissioners.
