- April 18, 2024
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WINDERMERE – The town of Windermere is desperately searching for solutions to its cut-through traffic issues.
Despite being a small town of 1.571 square miles and 2,889 residents, about 20,000 vehicles travel through the town on a daily basis.
The town is sandwiched between the Butler Chain of Lakes and surrounded by ongoing development of residential neighborhoods and commercial centers located in other jurisdictions, resulting in limited options for how to manage the traffic.
“When people ask me, ‘What are you going to do about the traffic,’ my answer is usually ‘nothing’ because there’s nothing we can do,” said Windermere Town Manager Robert Smith. “Because we’re experiencing all the traffic from all the new development that’s outside of our jurisdiction and we’re stuck in between a chain of lakes and there’s really nothing that we can do.”
According to Smith and previous traffic studies conducted in the town, there has been an increase of traffic on the roadways. The traffic, presumably, comes from vehicles using Main Street and Sixth Avenue to cut through the town to head north or south.
However, the unwanted traffic also is spilling over onto the town’s residential roadways during peak traffic hours, as noted by the Windermere Police Department’s traffic radar logs.
To minimize cut-through traffic, the town added signage on some roadways allowing only local traffic during certain times of the day. But the signage has proven to be unenforceable.
In response, the town’s Long Range Planning Committee discussed the issue and made a recommendation to the Town Council to hire a traffic engineering firm to get a better understanding of the issue and look at both short-and long-term options for minimizing cut-through traffic and improving flow in the town.
“The (LRP) discussed it at length in its last meeting and made the recommendation to fund a traffic study that would look at not only where the cut-through traffic is occurring ... but also where this traffic is coming from,” Smith said. “They have a technology that can figure out where the traffic originates from. If we track that information, we can take it to Orange County to bolster our argument.”
The town ultimately decided to approve the recommendation. Smith added the traffic study, estimated to cost between $40,000 to $50,000, will examine which roadways would make the most sense to either make a one-way or have partially blocked, without impeding solid waste, mail and emergency services.
WASTE PRO RECYCLING DENIED
Last year, Orange County, which never had charged for recycling, implemented a $42 per-ton fee of all recyclable materials brought to its facilities.
Tim Dolan, regional vice president of Waste Pro of Florida Inc., attended the Feb. 13 Town Council meeting to request the town reimburse Waste Pro for the increase in recycling costs. The town is currently paying Waste Pro $260,331 per year for its residential and commercial trash and recycling pickup services.
According to terms detailed in the town’s contract with Waste Pro, Waste Pro was required to make a written request for any increase to those annual fees at least 90 days before Oct. 1, 2017, But Dolan hoped Waste Pro and the town could share the financial burden, despite not having given notice by the deadline.
Council members unanimously denied Dolan’s request because they already had completed and approved the budget and would have had to either pull the money from the town’s contingency reserves or charge the taxpayers retroactively.
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