by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
Legislation that would permanently close a portion of Landon Avenue may get more debate on the City Council than originally anticipated.
Though garnering unanimous support from two of the three committees reviewing it, at the request of Council member Suzanne Jenkins, the bill was deferred last week.
She said she would “not support it.”
“I don’t even want to think about how closing Landon Avenue will affect traffic through there,” said Jenkins. “Some of my constituents use that road to take their children to school, and I’m sure there are several others who do, too.
“Now you’re going to divert all those people onto Hendricks Avenue. How stupid is that?”
Jenkins said she was caught off guard by the bill and would have spoken sooner had she known about it.
“The people who live in that neighborhood want it closed, but that’s not acceptable,” she said. “It was designed that way in the 1930s and the people living there knew what they were buying when they moved in.
“We have to be very careful when we start closing roads because, once we do, we can’t open them back up again.”
Council member Art Shad is sponsoring the bill. For months he has said the majority of the community stands behind closing the road.
“The portion of Landon Avenue we’re talking about is the area on either side of the railroad tracks,” said Shad. “It’s on an elevated curve and the neighborhood surrounding it has been very vocal about it being unsafe for a long time.
“I was already getting calls about it during my first month on the Council and I’ve come to understand that, from a safety standpoint, it’s far from ideal. In fact, the road is much thinner than what is acceptable by today’s standards and could not even be built now.”
Shad said Landon Avenue neighborhood residents and businesses approached the Florida Department of Transportation and Florida East Coast Railway, a regional freight railroad operator and frequent user of the tracks, to see what could be done.
“What the neighborhood had to do was meet a list of criteria before it could go before Council,” said Shad. “Everyone from the sheriff’s office, to public works, fire and rescue and the School Board had to approve their application before it could be submitted.”
Shad agreed to draft legislation, providing each entity could determine that if the road closed, emergency response times and public school schedules would not be greatly affected.
“And honestly, non-neighborhood traffic shouldn’t be cutting through a neighborhood to just avoid a traffic light,” he said.
Shad said Hendricks Avenue “has plenty of capacity” to handle more morning traffic and he was surprised by Jenkins’ opposition to the bill.
“I thought we had done a good job of letting everyone know what was going on,” he said. “It was in the paper three times and we had a public meeting last month.
“But if this snuck up on her and she wants to ask questions, then I don’t don’t mind waiting two more weeks before letting it go before the Council.”
Shad said he would contact Jenkins prior to the next Transportation, Technology and Energy committee meeting in an attempt to better understand her concerns.
“I’ll do my best to explain the nature of what we’re doing,” he said. “But even though this bill has a broad base of support, you’re never going to be able to convince someone who has made up their mind.”