Bike Smart AB

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#BikeSmartAB | The Atlantic Beach Official Website! Bicycling is one of the best ways to get exercise, see the sights and reduce your carbon footprint. However, bicyclists face a host of hazards. They often must share the road with vehicles, and injuries can happen even on a designated path.

Want to get involved in helping make AB safer for bicyclists and pedestrians? This is a text of a petition we plan to present to the City Commission on November 28. To sign the petition and otherwise get involved, please contact one of the Bike Smart AB coalition facilitators listed at the bottom of end of the text below.

Atlantic Beach is steadily growing. This has resulted in more people living in and visiting our city, and more vehicles, construction and commercial trucks, golf carts, bicycles and e-bikes. The infrastructure has not kept up with the growth. Accidents involving vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians have increased.

Bike Smart AB is a grass-roots coalition of concerned Atlantic Beach residents and business owners who want to improve bicycle safety. The group has identified intersections in Atlantic Beach that are dangerous, especially for bicyclists and pedestrians. These intersections are congested and line-of-sight visibility is poor. This report focuses on these intersections and provides recommendations for improvement. A more comprehensive report on issues related to bicycle safety is forthcoming.

Dangerous Intersections

1. East Coast Drive and Atlantic Boulevard: This busy intersections ha poor visibility from parked vehicles and shrubbery. Large delivery trucks obstruct traffic flow. You must enter into the intersection to see if there is oncoming traffic.

2. Sherry Drive and Atlantic Boulevard: Vehicles are turning right and left from Sherry, turning left from Atlantic, and stopping in the middle of the intersection to complete the turn.

3. Royal Palms Drive/Penman Road and Atlantic Boulevard: Busy, congested and cars are making turns in every direction.

4. Plaza Drive and Mayport Road, and other streets crossing Mayport: Busy, fast-moving cars are turning in all directions without regard for bicyclists and pedestrians; and signage is poor.

5. Five-way stop: It’s busy, particularly at peak times. Motorists are uncertain about when to yield to other motorists and to bicyclists.

Recommendations

Bike Smart AB recommends that the City of Atlantic Beach conduct a comprehensive evaluation of these intersections and other dangerous intersections not identified in this report, and make fixes to improve safety. Fixes will vary by intersection. Solutions may include re-routing traffic, removing visual obstructions, and better signage. Bike Smart AB would like to work with the City to make these interactions safer.

Respectively submitted:

Lynn Sharpe Underwood ([email protected])
Thom Underwood ([email protected])
Alan Halperin ([email protected])
Kathleen Halperin ([email protected])
Aaron Levine ([email protected])