Orange County shares ideas for safer Hamlin Groves Trail

Orange County District 1 Commissioner Nicole Wilson held a community meeting Tuesday, April 1, to give Horizon West residents a look at what features will be implemented to make their Hamlin Groves Trail neighborhood safer.

The meeting was held in one of the theaters at Cinépolis Luxury Cinemas in the Hamlin community, with dozens of residents in attendance.

Orange County’s Traffic Engineering Division is conducting a study to address traffic calming and pedestrian/bicycle safety along Hamlin Groves Trail. The study will evaluate measures to better manage vehicular speeds, enhance safety for all users,and provide safer pedestrian and bicycle crossings.

County staff and project consultants presented findings from the study and discussed potential solutions under evaluation. Proposed near-term improvements include new crosswalks, restricted crossing U-turns and rectangular rapid-flashing beacons. Long-term improvements include roundabouts and new traffic signals.

“Horizon West is special,” Wilson said. “It was created with the idea of viable walkable communities. … The goal is to see if people truly are committed to a walkable community and how do we create that safely?”

The corridor being studied is about one mile long, and there are no crosswalks between New Independence Parkway and the intersection at Porter Road.

Jamie Krzeminski, senior transportation engineer with HDR Engineering, said the study looked at the traffic potential going out 20 years. As part of the study, the team collected traffic and crash data.

Turning movement counts were collected along Hamlin Groves Trail at New Independence Parkway, Midsweet Lane, Shoreside Way, the Publix Super Markets driveway, Waterbird Road, Gwinnett Drive, Newtonia Street, Shonan Gold Drive, Calamondin Drive and Porter Road. Volume and speed counts were collected between the Publix driveway and Waterbird Road and between Shonan Gold Drive and Calamondin Drive.

Existing daily volumes were taken from a 2023 Annual Average Daily Traffic report at two locations: Porter Road to Gwinnett Drive (19,574) and from Gwinnett Drive to New Independence Parkway (20,604). Those numbers are expected to rise to 30,000 and 32,000, respectively, by the year 2045.

A total of 78 vehicle crashes were reported from 2018 to 2022, with 53 reporting no injuries, 24 reporting injuries and one reporting serious injuries. Thirty-two percent were left-turn crashes, and 18% were rear-end crashes.

There was one bicycle crash and about a dozen pedestrian incidents.

The study identified multiple near-term needs, he said, including safe crossing opportunities across Hamlin Groves Trail, consistency of crosswalks and stop bar pavement markings, median opening adjustments and varied maintenance.

“There are eight full median openings between New Independence Parkway and Porter Road,” Krzeminski said. “The median openings are quite wide as multiple vehicles try to stack up in that area. That’s one thing we’re trying to (eliminate).”

The study looked at what already has been developed along the corridor, and staff worked with Orange County to determine what types of businesses were proposed to come in.

One solution is to close some of the eight median openings and add a restricted-crossing U-turn with Z crossing, which is a pedestrian crossing pattern where pedestrians are rerouted to cross the major street in a “Z” shape, typically to avoid conflicts with high-volume right-turning vehicles. These would have additional features such as rectangular rapid-flashing beacons.

Krzeminski said such features are proposed at Shoreside Way, Waterbird Road and Newtonia Street.

Other possibilities include raised crosswalk and pedestrian warning symbol pavement markings, and advance rumble strips, Krzeminski said.

Long-term improvements would include multilane roundabouts and traffic signals.

The benefits of roundabouts are reduced vehicle speeds, improved flow, shorter crossing distances for non-motorized users, fewer conflict points, improved corridor access management and aesthetics, and improved safety for all users, according to a slideshow presentation at the meeting.

Roundabouts are proposed at the Publix driveway and Gwinnett Drive.

After the presentation, the floor was open for comments.

Wilson said Horizon West’s road network has been built in segments as the community has been developed so the county is having to retrofit many of the roadways and intersections.