Maitland pushes the brakes on traffic study

Maitland is stalling the process of studying traffic in its city core, pushing the breaks after driving the process forward earlier this summer.

The Maitland City Council voted last Monday, July 25, to table making a decision on whether or not it will shell out $228,000 to study traffic along the Maitland Avenue corridor. In May, the Council voted to have the Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) review the scope of the proposed study and offer a recommendation of how the city should proceed. On July 14, the TAB recommended that the Council move forward with the updated transportation analysis.

The city’s last transportation study was done in 2004. CRA Manager Charles Rudd urged the City Council to put the study in motion to take advantage of the momentum of the rest of the planning going on in the city right now, including the in-process Master Plan update.

“We’ve been kind of behind with a 12-year-old master plan and a 12-year-old transportation study,” Rudd said. “…This is the first step in many steps. Until we take this, we have to wait on the rest of them… if we don’t do this now, everything else waits.”

But the Council unanimously decided to put the study on hold, agreeing to wait until its already paid for and nearly complete Mobility Plan and Mobility Fee study comes in front of them later this month. Maitland’s transportation lobbyist Louis Rotundo told the Council that, in his opinion, waiting to start the study until other already-in-process transportation-related studies are complete – including one assessing the cost and feasibility of installing a flyover at the intersection of Maitland Avenue and Maitland Boulevard – was the right decision.

“I’m not suggesting you don’t do [the study], but I am suggesting you postpone it,” Rotundo said.

Councilman Mike Thomas said he didn’t see the rush in investing nearly a quarter of a million dollars to do the traffic study right now.

“The road isn’t going anywhere the issues aren’t going anywhere,” Thomas said. “…The whole world isn’t going to end, and we’re not going to lose out on anything if this whole thing isn’t done right now.”

Thomas suggested possibly breaking up the study into more digestible – and less costly – chunks over time instead of all at once.

The new study would update the 2004 Maitland Area Transportation Study, of which nearly all of its proposed projects have been completed. The one study suggestion that remains in limbo is whether or not to put Maitland Avenue on a road diet, narrowing it down to less lanes each way. Rudd said the new study would give the city updated data to make an educated decision on what has become a hotly contested issue.

The diet decision will remain on hold for now, as the Council agreed to postpone voting on the updated transportation study until new information is provided by city staff in the coming months.