Even before construction began for the new BJ’s Wholesale Club on State Road 100, even before the state Department of Transportation began a significant improvement project along the same road, county and city officials were nervous about what was already one of the more congested corridors in Palm Coast.
To Commission Chair Andy Dance’s dismay, the County Commission jumped the gun two years ago when it cleared the way for the development without addressing traffic concerns even Palm Coast’s traffic engineers was raising at the time before the city annexed the shopping center zone. The vote was 4-1, with Dance in dissent. Traffic congestion concerns were again repeatedly raised since.
BJ’s hasn’t opened yet. But congestion has worsened, road construction is ongoing and out-of-sync traffic signals seem to have a mind of their own. At a joint meeting of the Flagler County Commission and a sliver of the Palm Coast City Council Wednesday evening (only Mayor David Alfin and Council member Theresa Pontieri showed up), Dance and County Administrator Heidi Petito sought to allay some frustrations by detailing a pair of planned turning lanes paralleling the BJ’s Wholesale development, officially called Cornerstone. The lanes will widen 100 along that stretch and presumably loosen some of the bottlenecks.
“A lot of this started with the road work that was happening on 100,” Dance said. “We’re all getting different complaints of the traffic because the light signals are being controlled by the contractor. It’s all a combination of worst possible scenarios right now, with the BJ’s opening.” County officials had initially thought the turn-lane project was separate from DOT’s road-improvement project. It isn’t. “I wanted to try to facilitate an expedited completion of the turn lanes with 100, but working with DOT, they’ve got their program, and it’s very hard to change that program. So the entire project is due to be complete in the spring of 2025, and that’s the best we’ve got.”
One turn lane will be added for eastbound traffic making a right turn onto Seminole Woods Boulevard. Another turn lane will be added for westbound traffic making a right turn onto Town Center Boulevard. “So they will be widening to allow for right turn lanes,” Petito said. But the transportation department has not started that work and does not have an estimated time of completion, since the turn lanes are not tied to the Cornerstone project. Alfin said he had communications from DOT suggesting the turning lanes would be built starting in November.
Earlier this year the Florida Department of Transportation began a project along 4.5 miles of State Road 100 that includes resurfacing between North Palmetto Street in Bunnell to Old Kings Road South, building sidewalks, improving traffic devices and installing wrong-way devices at the I-95 interchange. The turning lanes near BJ’s Wholesale are also part of the project.
The goal is to improve safety for drivers and pedestrians and extend the life of the road, DOT states in a presentation, even though it’s also part of DOT’s goals eventually to widen the road to six lanes. A 2019 traffic study found that anywhere from 12,600 to 32,000 vehicles travel a part of the corridor per day, according to DTO.
Meanwhile, traffic is naturally increasing: Miller’s Ale has already opened at the Cornerstone/BJ’s shopping center. BJ’s Wholesale and its fueling station and Longhorn Steakhouse will open next, then a Chase bank, and some sort of chicken restaurant. “I’m not sure which chicken restaurant, it hasn’t been made public yet,” Petito said. All of that will concentrate traffic further in that zone, with some concerns already apparent.
Commissioner Dave Sullivan said it’s problematic when one entrance into the development just west of Seminole Woods Boulevard, going west on State Road 100, has no traffic light. “There’s a very small turn lane, and then that traffic cuts across,” Sullivan said. “I can see very easily that people will, if they see delays either way, will try to use that left hand turn to get in.” That will cause backups.
“That’s going to be a dangerous left turn,” Commissioner Greg Hansen said, proposing an island at that point, blocking the turn.
The county’s Planning Board and commissioners had hoped over the past two years that there would be a cut-through road from the BJ’s Wholesale parking lot to the southbound lanes of Seminole Woods Boulevard, going behind the RaceTrac. But RaceTrac has continuously refused to allow such a road because it would essentially benefit a competitor, since RaceTrac is in the business of selling gas, and BJ’s aims to sell gas likely at even more competitive prices. As of Wednesday, there was still no hope of getting that road, Petito said.
BJ’s is contributing $199,000 of the $276,000 in transportation impact fees generated so far at Cornerstone. Impact fee revenue may be used to defray the impact of new development on roads. Since the property is being annexed to Palm Coast, the county and Palm Coast are working on transferring that money to the city, with the understanding that it would be spet on further road improvements in that area. There are similar plans to address significant development along Roberts Road and Colbert Lane, where upward of 1,400 housing units are planned. But those improvements, if funded, would have to play catch-up to the new realities on the ground–and would have to first be designed, which takes time.
As for the impact fee revenue, Dance suggested that Palm Coast use the money to build two left-hand turning lanes onto Seminole Woods, for eastbound traffic on State Road 100.
Palm Coast Chief of Staff Jason DeLorenzo said DOT’s solution for that is a longer cue–or additional space–in the existing turning lane, not an additional turning lane. “We have not done done any design work for Seminole Woods eastbound or westbound,” DeLorenzo said.
Meanwhile, it was important to send the message to the public that the turn lanes will be built, “to free up the backlog of traffic that’s going south on Seminole Woods, ” Dance said, “because right now, that is the genesis for the backlog in front of BJs, there’s no ability to freely turn right.”
Turning lanes and road improvements aside, sidewalks currently extend on both sides of the road from South Palmetto to Commerce Parkway, where the south-side sidewalk stops. The project is extending that sidewalk to just west of I-95. The six-foot sidewalk will accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists. The future wrong-way warning on I-95 ramps will be electronically activated when DOT’s Regional Transportation Monitoring center detects such a case, flashing a red wrong-way warning sign to the driver, sending alerts to drivers on I-95 through electronic message boards, and alerting police. Lane closures are limited to off-peak hours except for work at the I-95 interchange, which requires temporary ramp closures.
Allen says
Easy fix make make Sr 100 3 lanes each way. Wake up palmcoast, that will fix it.
JimboXYZ says
The traffic congestion right now is more about BJ’s & anything else there NOT being open for business yet. It was gridlock there before any grand opening. Fast forward to the present, Miller’s Ale House is open, they seem to have a full parking lot, traffic is no better than it was throughout construction, there are turn lanes and Miller’s Ale House traffic as an opened business, is a fraction of what BJ’s is supposed to bring as the main attraction.
This isn’t any appreciable commercial traffic for BJ’s or anything else opening on that tract of land that is causing the gridlock, it’s the traffic from Alfin’s growth, traffic lights that aren’t synced. I get to a certain extent they have to slow traffic down initially, because a new traffic pattern will create chaos until the local Flagler resident gets a better comprehension of what the traffic will be like at different hours of the day. Wait until the accidents start to rack up because one of the “too fast, too furious” motorist types come in too hot & start rear rending other motorists ? They would need to widen for more lanes like ISB in Daytona Beach to get the traffic flow restored to pre-BJ’s era SR-100. It’s not all BJ’s, they aren’t even open. Advent slows traffic at their light as they expanded a hospital. Back to more taxation to maintain infrastructure. SR-100 is a State road, not sure what the split is county vs state, when Palm Coast/Bunnell ends up congesting SR-100 with commercial businesses that should be paying for a portion of that road because they are benefiting financially from the location.
FlaglerOG says
They need to time these lights better so the traffic flows through. Visit Palm Beach County. They have a lot of traffic but the lights flow so you’re not stopped at a red light 1000′ from the green light you just drove through. After many visits there, I noticed the difference. We need that same practice implemented here to help the flow.
Billy says
Traffic will be backed up onto rt95! Unbelievable, lets move 200,000 people into a small tin can.
Atwp says
Did they think about the traffic problem?
Dennis C Rathsam says
MOE, LARRY, & CURLEY…..When you hire STOOGES…. you get a clusterfuck! GEEZZZZZZZ! Even the TINMAN could have saw this coming!
dishrag says
the traffic lights are set-up for the posted speed limit, who is keeping the speed limit….??????????
Nick says
Concrete the whole town and put 5000 lanes in. Then it might work!
Doug says
Funny that someone mentioned “out of sync traffic signals” – Palm Coast is the absolute worse.
Doug says
No one “thinks” anymore – they just do whatever.