Someone recently marked up the concrete Jersey barrier on the bridge at Royal Palms Parkway and Town center Boulevard with this line, with a tentative, thin black marker: “Put a light here!” Help is, in fact, on the way, though it will be well over a year before anyone sees any changes.
The barely visible exclamation, clearly from a law-abiding resident who doesn’t know the first thing about vandal-worthy graffiti paint, nevertheless reflects the frustration and occasional anger drivers feel as their cars back up to caravan lengths worthy of the Silk Road, but on less storied Royal Palms Parkway, as they approach Town Center Boulevard. There’s only a stop sign on the Royal Palms side, and it’s all two lanes but for a right-lane turn from Royal Palms to Town Center. For those waiting to turn left toward Old Kings Road, they’d better have a good audio book to keep them company.
Once they made the turn, the intersection of Town Center and Old Kings Road isn’t much better. It, too, backs up, its two lanes a throwback to when Town Center was a desert and Palm Coast not yet the city of 100,000-and-counting that it’s become. Add to that the 333-home development churning along Royal Palms and Town center Boulevard, and the 72-home development going up nearby along Point Pleasant Drive, and those intersections are in for yet more tributaries of cars and bile.
Maybe the amateur tagger of that Jersey barrier was at the Palm Coast City Council Tuesday evening. A man whose identity needn’t be revealed, given the context so far, addressed the council to complain about that very intersection, among roads, using language more often heard from Gaza these days: “That intersection alone, Royal Palms and Town Center Boulevard , it’s tragic and a nightmare,” he said. “I went there late at night, came through there. I couldn’t even see the intersection, it’s so dark. That whole area Royal Palms, you’re going to build houses there, that whole area needs to be redesigned.” (The man then unleashed vulgar vituperations against apartments and more homes.)
The Council later at that meeting approved a plan to kick-off the engineering design and widening of that segment from Royal Palms Parkway and Town Center Boulevard to Old Kings Road, and the four-laning of Old Kings Road from that intersection going north, to Palm Coast Parkway. It’s what the city calls Phase 2 of the four-laning of Old Kings Road. Phase 1 was the portion already four-laned in 2010, from State Road 100 to Town Center Boulevard, back when the city thought Walmart was opening a supercenter down that way.
The $4 million plan is split into smaller phases, beginning with the $500,000 design. That $500,000 is a state grant. The rest must come from city coffers.
The aim of it all, as Carl Cote, the city’s chief engineer and stormwater director, is “to look at the intersection of Royal Palms and Town Center Boulevard, to look at four-laning Royal Palms from that intersection to Old Kings Road, and then also to analyze the intersection at Town Center and Old Kings Road. So it’s basically widening the roadway from two to four lanes along that entire route. It would probably be constructed in phases due to the cost and timing.”
Survey work, environmental work and permitting work will all take at least a year or more.
“it’s about time,” Mayor David Alfin said, referring to Old Kings Road as the oldest in the city. He said it’s “badly needed.”
Several funds will pay for it. Impact fees in Town Center could pay for the segment between Royal Palms and Old Kings Road. The Old Kings Road Special Assessment District, paid for by property owners along Old Kings Road, would pay for some of the costs on Old Kings, as would city impact fees.
The plan will also address stormwater issues: the canal that empties out Palm Coast and flows into the Intracoastal flows along that portion of Royal Palms Parkway and Town Center Boulevard, and under I-95. But it, too, needs work. The city just completed the installation of a new weir on that canal, parallel to Royal Palms.
“This addresses some of the citizens’ questions tonight about Royal Palms and the intersection at old Kings Road, so this design will definitely help alleviate some of those concerns,” Interim City Manager Lauren Johnston said.
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