‘Safety is just not there’: Gainesville officials host guided walks to notify about redesign plans

Published: Jan. 24, 2023 at 11:26 PM EST

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) - City of Gainesville Transportation officials walked and talked along with residents, in ‘Corridor Walks’, to get their input to create safer roads.

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Corridor Walks is a six-segment outreach from January 24th through the 26th. “I’m glad the city is taking user input on how to redesign the street,” shared UF student Adrian Santiago. “I hope they’ll take into account some of our suggestions about doing minimal things like painting the bike lane just for visibility purposes and adding vertical barriers for cyclists.”

Officials aim to highlight multiple pedestrian and cyclist accidents that happened this month. “It’s absolutely a crisis. I remember during my time at UF as a sophomore, two girls got killed on university and it’s been a problem ever since,” shared Santiago.

April Hulbert, an Alachua County parent, said her children walk through very dangerous roads in order to get to school. Hulbert wants city and Alachua County commissioners to not only listen, but also take action.

“I swear 80% of the kids in the traffic, are coming alone so they are sometimes groups of friends, sometimes there’s alone person,” shared Hulbert. “There’s nobody there to help them.” Hulbert said adding a flashing beacon to all school crosswalks would be ideal.

Alachua County commissioners and Gainesville commissioners voted unanimously to declare a “Traffic Violence Crisis”. Officials said each walk is meant to get a step closer to creating a safer Gainesville for all.

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