In reviewing, the Quiet Zone gates and their installation it was determined that approximately half the cost of the whole improvement or about $300k is related solely to the New York/Lyman intersection. This intersection has long been a difficult one as its size and spanning of the railroad tracks, often results in driver confusion at the 4-way stop. In reviewing this intersection staff is considering the opportunity of closing off Lyman on the east side of the tracks. In addition to saving funding on the gates installation (approximate savings of $75k), this potential project would also provide a number of other beneficial enhancements:

• Creates nine additional parking spaces by redesigning the lot behind city hall.

• Offers an event space alternative directly in front of the Welcome Center but close enough to downtown to be an alternative to closing Park Avenue.

• Provides convenient adjacency to the Farmers’ Market allowing for potential expansion and creating a natural linkage of activity to Park Avenue.

• Removing the stop signs on New York at the intersection would improve traffic flow along New York Avenue and also potentially improve Fire response times as currently engine traffic is routed down Interlachen, which is a difficult street to use because of the schools/churches presence but has fewer stop signs than New York, currently.

• Allows for enhanced beautification and landscaped space in the downtown. At this high visibility area near the Farmers’ Market and our Welcome Center, there are numerous possibilities to add enhancements to the landscape/hardscape.

• While this would remove traffic flow on Lyman across the tracks, there exist multiple alternative parallel connector roads and very few businesses that have access directly to Lyman: parking lots of City Hall, Welcome Center, and the real estate and plaza lot. All of these lots can be accessed by Park or Comstock as the City Hall lot would still allow access through to Lyman (see attached concept sketch).

The contractor doing the Quiet Zones is planning to do this intersection last, which would put their start date in late March, however there may be some options for delaying that further if more time is necessary to evaluate this project. Staff is also updating traffic counts on Lyman in addition to reaching out to the business community in cooperation with the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, who supports this concept. In addition, staff will take this concept to the CRA Advisory Board and Transportation Advisory Board for further review and comment. It is staff’s intention to have more complete answers to some of these questions by the first Commission meeting in March to bring this back as an action item for approval, while still taking advantage of the timing on the Quiet Zone project.

Allow the Quiet Zone project to proceed and continue to review these options going forward. The city would lose the potential savings of acting now and would have to potentially spend more in the future to make improvements if the street was to be closed later.