Key West takes a look at rebuilding S. Roosevelt into 2-lane road with new bike paths

For all its sunny days and ocean breezy nights, Key West still has its dangers, including state highway A1A with a bend known since at least the 1950s as Dead Man’s Curve.

That piece of the four-lane South Roosevelt Boulevard, where the speed limit is 30 but the paved stretch inspires some drivers to develop a lead foot, is just past the airport outside the East Martello Tower.

Locals like Roger McVeigh, a triathlete and bike transportation advocate, say it’s time for South Roosevelt from Bertha Street to the east end of Smathers Beach to downsize to two lanes with a center turn lane with dedicated bike lanes in both directions, as proposed as one of two options by the Florida Department of Transportation.

McVeigh calls the two-lane option “bike-friendly change.”

At their 6 p.m. meeting Tuesday at 1300 White St., city commissioners will decide whether to approve that option or endorse leaving the traffic pattern as two lanes in both directions or postpone a decision.

“Approval of this resolution will authorize Florida Department of Transportation to proceed with the currently designed four-lane project,” wrote Jim Bouquet, Key West’s director of engineering, in a Jan. 11 memo that also reminded the commissioners of a past strategic plan goal.

Choosing the two-lane option for South Roosevelt “will better support a transportation system which is aesthetically attractive, functional, efficient, safe and environmentally sensitive,” Bouquet wrote.

The city asked FDOT for a study on the lane reduction idea in June 2016, focusing specifically on the stretch of boulevard between Bertha Street and the east end of Smathers Beach. A public workshop gathered locals’ views, which produced a consensus among the community to add crosswalks, give serious cyclists a dedicated place to ride and address the dangerous turn onto Bertha Street with better signs, reduced speeds and/or additional guardrails, according to a Dec. 13, 2016, report by the consultants Dover, Kohl and Partners.

Currently, FDOT is looking at a project of reconstructing just under one mile of South Roosevelt as a four-lane road, with improvements to the seawall cap, installing three crosswalks each with a rapid flashing light and drainage work along the entire road.

Dawn Thomas, who has lived at a South Roosevelt apartment complex for 15 years, wants the city to leave the four lane-pattern alone, saying the oceanside concrete sidewalk is already wide enough for walkers, runners and bicyclists to share.

“Only the ‘professional bicyclists’ use the road and that’s only once in a while,” Thomas wrote to the city. “Please don’t two-lane South Roosevelt. That would create traffic back-ups. If there were an accident; then how would emergency vehicles get through?”

This story was originally published February 4, 2017 at 9:51 AM with the headline "Key West takes a look at rebuilding S. Roosevelt into 2-lane road with new bike paths."