Irate Tampa Bay legislator stalls Orlando’s Robinson Street remake

A rebuild of Robinson Street through the heart of Orlando to enhance walking, cycling and adjoining neighborhoods has been pursued by residents since the last century, under design for nearly the past decade and on the cusp of happening in a few months.

But the nearly $15 million transformation project, extending two miles from Interstate 4 to the executive airport and meant to slow traffic, has been waylaid by state lawmakers. The effort, seen as a pioneering showcase for improving safety, is now on hold for as much as a year for further study and appears vulnerable to a bureaucratic beatdown.

"Oh man, we've been trying for 30 years to get a crosswalk across Robinson to Lake Eola to get our neighbors and everybody else across that street," said David Martens, a Lake Eola Heights historic district leader. "We were finally going to get a sidewalk and that was a breakthrough."

It all starts with a Tampa Bay state representative, who has a beef with dedicating lanes for public busing in her district. Earlier this year, she was able to add a 300-hundred-word "Traffic lane repurposing" clause to a larger transportation law that has disrupted road improvements across Florida.

The lawmaker, Linda Chaney, a Republican from St. Pete Beach, could not be reached for comment because of Hurricane Helene's damage to her city, her aide said in an email.

But Chaney provided a statement in response to Orlando Sentinel questions about her legislation affecting an Orlando road project.

The response focused on a controversy in Pinellas County over a proposal to repurpose roadway as dedicated bus lanes, which has little to do with Robinson Street's circumstances.

"This devastating storm shows how important it is that the taxpayers get full utilization of the asset they have paid for," Chaney said. "There is no need to eliminate lanes for buses that carry 1% to 3% of the population."

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said Robinson's improvement has long been a top and deeply considered city priority.

"I can't tell you how many things go to the legislature like that," said an agitated Dyer, a former state senator. "Some local issue blows up and then they pass legislation that affects the whole state."

Since this spring, Robinson has been a gantlet of construction, detours and closures while Orlando Utilities Commission replaces underground electric and water lines. The Robinson remake was to have commenced seamlessly afterward by early next year.

As described by Martens, Robinson Street at the north side of Lake Eola epitomizes what the road has become in the eyes of many who participated in public engagement toward its overhaul: severely outdated.

A blog post in August by the Morgan & Morgan injury law firm describes it as "a scenic road near Lake Eola that is considered by many to be an obsolete and even dangerous relic."

Robinson's average daily traffic count last year was a lot: 15,000 in front of Lake Eola and 19,000 east of Ferncreek Avenue.

Rush hour traffic backs up at intersections. At less busy times, cars often hit highway speeds on what Dyer likens to a "four-lane racetrack."

Sharing the road during evenings and weekends are Lake Eola visitors, including children, elderly and some in wheelchairs, many attempting to thread a harrowing traffic needle crossing Robinson at Broadway Avenue where the nearest crosswalks are 350 yards to the westand 850 yards to the east.

The crowded and diverse thoroughfare – residents include the 426-foot-tall Vue condo tower, Howard Middle magnet school, T.G. Lee Dairy and Orlando's Dickson Azalea and Festival parks – is dysfunctional in other ways.

Lynx public buses at nearly 11 feet from mirror to mirror must squeeze along Robinson lanes 9 feet wide, and sometimes whack an oak with a mirror.

Robinson's sidewalks often adjoin the street's curbs, putting pedestrians and cyclists within inches of bumpers.

At the east end of Robinson, in the funky, popular Milk District of shops, eateries and bars, drivers have veered from the street into storefronts.

"We have bike racks and signs that go down because people just jump that curb," said Angie Folks, executive director of the Milk District, which is part of Orlando's Main Street program supporting neighborhoods' merchants and residents.

Folks said the utility work alone has been disruptive and that patronizing the Milk District's businesses will be crucial for them to outlast a Robinson remake.

Still, she said, Robinson "improvements need to be made."

Proposed Robinson improvements evolved from the state Department of Transportation's coordination with the city, going back to 2016. Core to the project is reducing the street's four travel lanes to two and the top speed down to 25 mph. Sidewalks will be rebuilt, and bike lanes and crosswalks added.

There were public meetings over studies, recommendations and revisions at the First Unitarian Church on Robinson.

The state transportation department, paying for most of the project, maintains an archive of documents detailing the plans, which can be found with a Google search for FDOT and Robinson Street.

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, was on the Infrastructure Strategies Committee where she opposed Chaney's lane legislation at various stages.

But the legislation's implications for Robinson did not become clear until after it vanished into the transportation department's bureaucracy for interpretation.

Eskamani pressed for transparency and learned last month what DOT intends for Robinson – to replicate much of an enormous amount of work that has already taken years to complete.

That includes "defining the roadway network to analyze, collecting necessary traffic counts in the defined network, traffic forecasting, conducting traffic analysis, and public outreach," said C. Jack Adkins, director of Central Florida transportation development. "This will take approximately one year."

The department secretary for Central Florida, John Tyler, when questioned briefly at a public meeting Monday, sought to downplay the disruption.

"We're trying to make sure that we're going to be able to complete the project in the manner in which we started with our partner, the city of Orlando," Tyler said.

Eskamani said the episode amounts to "politics getting in the way of good policy" and a waste of public resources.

"It's definitely frustrating because it creates unnecessary delay and expense, and it just hinders the progress that we've been working so hard to pursue," she said. "Red tape designed to make something harder."