Windermere officials assess traffic problems in workshop

Windermere Town Council members and staff focused their latest public workshop on traffic issues that plague the small town of 2,889 residents.

The workshop, held Wednesday, June 20, featured a discussion on the findings of the town’s most recent traffic study performed by Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc.

The study evaluated where the 20,000 vehicles that pass through the town originate and where they are headed, as well as which corridors receive the most traffic. According to the study, Sixth Avenue and Main Street are the most stressed roads.

Windermere Town Manager Robert Smith said the goal behind the study and data collection was twofold: to determine whether any viable options exist to reduce cut-through traffic and ensure the town had ample proof demonstrating the adverse impact Orange County’s incessant growth has had on the town’s roadways.

“Now, we actually have accurate numbers that show 75% of the traffic in peak times are coming from the east to the west, and it’s coming from Sixth Avenue down Chase (Road), because they’re going toward Summerport,” Smith said.

Town officials believe Orange County needs to be mindful of how dense residential and commercial projects it approves would impact surrounding jurisdictions. 

Windermere is sandwiched between the Butler Chain of Lakes and has several dirt roads it prizes as part of its small-town charm, leaving limited options when it comes constructing parallel reliever roads or placing speed bumps on residential roadways.

“It’s just something that we’re going to have to live with unless we get those parallel relievers constructed, Smith said. “And I’m not saying that would be a 100% fix, but I think it would help drastically.”

The town also is prohibited from impeding its roadways in any way because of an agreement with Orange County, resulting in even fewer options to manage the traffic.

And the go-to solution for most communities of adding more lanes to it main thoroughfares would be unacceptable, Smith said.

“You cannot have a main street that is full of lanes,” he said. “You’d pretty much kill the town of Windermere. That’s why I think it’s a good thing that we’re thinking about the possibility of a linear park on the west side of Main Street. The best thing we could do, really, is work with (Metroplan Orlando) on trying to get parallel reliever roads constructed that would hopefully take away some of the pressures of people using us as a cut-through, so people would have more options. And that would be necessary for the north and the south.”

That’s why Smith hopes the hard data can be used to persuade the county to either offer jurisdictions relief for roadways negatively impacted by its developments or at least reduce the density of future approved projects. 

“We’re kind of stuck, because of what other surrounding jurisdictions have approved,” Smith said. “Their decisions have a major impact to our areas and our roadways. But I can use that data whenever some large project is about to be developed and say, ‘Listen, before you approve this project, you need to find some sort of relief to the roadway system that we currently have, because our roads can’t take it anymore.’”

However, Orange County is under no obligation to make concessions for surrounding jurisdictions.

“It’s just a matter of hoping that Orange County will do the right thing on making sure that whatever entitlements they’re giving, they’re taking into consideration the impacts on other jurisdictions,” Smith said. “And this data helps us prove to them that it is having a negative impact on us.”